The Toledo Walleye play their third straight road game to open the ECHL season on Saturday night, visiting the Wheeling Nailers for a 7:10 p.m. puck drop at WesBanco Arena in Wheeling. Toledo arrives 1-1-0 after a 5-2 win at Indy on Friday night, while Wheeling is 0-0-1 in its only game so far.
Friday’s win in Indianapolis was built in the second period. Tyler Bertuzzi scored twice to lead the Walleye, who strung together four straight goals and took control before Indy answered on a third-period 5-on-3 power play, when Jacob Perreault scored to make it 4-2. Quinn Preston sealed the result with an empty-net goal, and the league’s three stars went to Bertuzzi, J. Lemieux of Toledo and H. Israels of Indy.
The ECHL’s game-day notes point to a pattern Toledo fans will recognize early in the season: the Walleye have scored six of their eight goals in the second period. Defenseman Marcus Crawford has been the early playmaker, tied for the league lead with four assists through the first two games.
Wheeling’s only outing was a 2-1 overtime loss at Indy last Friday, in which Tristan Thompson scored the Nailers’ lone goal and goaltender Nolan Lalonde stopped 29 of 31 shots. A low-scoring, goaltender-led game at home is exactly the style Wheeling will try to impose on a Toledo team that found its offense on Friday.
Saturday’s game continues a long opening road swing for Toledo. The Walleye started the season at Fort Wayne on October 17 and spend the next two weekends on the road before their home opener at the Huntington Center on Saturday, November 7, when they will again face Fort Wayne.
That home opener is one of the highlights of the 2026-27 schedule the team announced earlier this year. Thirty-three of Toledo’s 36 home games fall on a Friday, Saturday or Sunday, with two school education day games, a Black Friday home date on November 27 and a New Year’s Day game also on the calendar.
For now, the job is finishing the road weekend with a winning record. A victory in Wheeling would send the Walleye to Kalamazoo on October 30 at 2-1-0, with momentum from Bertuzzi’s two-goal night and a power-play unit looking to answer Indy’s late push from Friday.
Photo: Joel Washing, CC BY