Indy Hosts Wheeling in Wednesday Night Contest

With only two games this week, the Indy Fuel will begin a slower week compared to their recent standards. Coming off of back-to-back losses to the Fort Wayne Komets, the Fuel will be looking to snap their two-game losing skid while Wheeling is trying to earn back-to-back wins since February 13. 

TIME: 7:00 p.m. ET

TV/Stream: FloSports, mixlr.com/indyfuel

TEAM RECORDS

IND: 20-6-1-0, 41 PTS 

WHL: 7-14-4-0, 18 PTS

TEAM LEADERS

IND

Nic Pierog - 20 points (15G, 5A)

Matt Marcinew - 20 points (9G, 11A)

Michael McNicholas - 15 points (5G, 10A)

WHL

Matt Alfaro - 18 points (7G, 11A)

Cody Sylvester - 16 points (7G, 9A)

Sean Josling - 15 points (4G, 11A)

LAST TIME OUT

In their first of four games last week, the Fuel visited the Wheeling Nailers on Wednesday night. Scoring two goals in the first period and two in the second, Indy would see Dan Bakala make 36 saves en route to a 4-1 win over the Nailers at WesBanco Arena. 

SLOWING DOWN

After playing eight games in 12 days, the Fuel schedule slows down with only two games during Week 13 of the ECHL season. The slower schedule in the next two weeks gives Indy a chance to recover from injuries and put together a strong lineup. “The amount of players out of our lineup that have sustained injuries, either severe or niggles, you know, we’ve got a lot of guys who are playing nicked up,” said Head Coach Doug Christiansen. “We’ve got a lot of guys who aren’t playing at all. We play six games in the next 19 days which is really important. Of course, we play Wednesday so we’ve got a tight turnaround. But we don’t have any of the back-to-backs, so we don’t have to factor in rest in terms of our lineups. We can just focus on trying to get the best lineup out there so we can have success.”

FAMILIAR FOE

Wednesday night’s game will be the 11th out of 20 meetings between Indy and Wheeling this season. “Wheeling is probably the hardest forechecking team we’ve seen in the league,” said Head Coach Doug Christiansen. “They get in on the rush, they’re young, they’re hungry, they’re passionate. They get in on the forecheck and they force you to make plays. Fortunately for us, we’re a team that makes plays and we’re a team that if you get yourself out of position and you make a mistake, we can hurt you. We’ve had some success at that against Wheeling because when we’ve had opportunities, we put the puck in the net.” Entering Wednesday, the Fuel have had the Nailers’ number, putting together a record of 8-1-1-0. Defeating the Nailers 4-1 last Wednesday, only two out of the first 10 meetings have been decided by more than one goal. Through four games played at Indiana Farmers Coliseum between Indy and Wheeling, all four games have gone to overtime. 

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