WHEELING -- Matt Grennier and Jordan Morrison led the Nailers attack with a pair of goals apiece as the Wheeling Nailers defeated the Reading Royals 5-2 Saturday night at WesBanco Arena in front of an enthusiastic crowd of 2,935.

The Nailers jumped out to a quick start for the 2nd game in a row and led 3-0 after 1 period and then 5-0 after 2 periods.

Rob Sirianni started the scoring at 8:33 of the 1st period with his 11th goal of the year and 3rd of the weekend since returning from his 6 game loan to Binghamton of the AHL. Elgin Reid nicely fed Sirianni who fired it over Reading goalie Danny Taylor’s left shoulder.

Less than a minute later Jordan Morrison lit the lamp after Bryan Ewing was cross-checked in the left-wing but scrambled to his skates while the delayed penalty was signaled. Ewing worked his way to the left dot and found Morrison on the door-step to make it 2-0 before the Nailers could even pull their goalie for the extra attacker.

Matt Grennier raced up the left wing and stopped on the dot and paused before roofing his 4th goal of the season to give the Nailers a 3-0 lead at 12:48.

In the 2nd period Andrew Lord stole the puck away from Reading goalie Danny Taylor and found a wide open Grennier in front of the open net to make it 4-0 just 15 seconds into the middle frame. It was Grennier’s second multi-goal game of the season. Reading pulled goalie Danny Taylor at that point and replaced him with James Reimer who performed much better for the Royals.

At 9:08 of the 2nd period Mitch Ganzak carried the puck deep into the Royals zone and nicely dropped it for Morrison between the circles who blasted it top shelf to build the Nailers lead to 5-0. The puck went in and out of the net so quickly it was hard to see whether it had gone in except for the net that it knocked the water bottle high in the air.

David Brown was solid in net in improving to 5-0-2 as he turned away 23 of Reading’s 25 shots. Max Taylor blasted a top-shelf goal at 2:43 of the 3rd to break up the shutout bid for his 5th of the year in just 3 games with the team and Dinos Stamoulis added another at 10:11 to close the gap to 5-2 but the Royals could get no closer.

Wheeling limited Reading to 0 for 8 on the power play as their penalty kill continued their success. Wheeling’s penalty kill has held the opposition to 7/74 (90.5%) in the last 15 games including 1/27 (96.2%) in the last 4 games.

Wheeling went 0/2 on the man advantage. The Nailers outshot the Royals 30-25. This was the first matchup between the Nailers and the Royals this year who will meet a total of 10 times this season. Reading was the last team in the North Division for the Nailers to face as they have played multiple games against every other team.

The Nailers are 2-0 when wearing their Baby Blue jerseys which are replicas of the New Year’s Day special jerseys of the Pittsburgh Penguins. Wheeling wear the Baby Blues for the last time in the Sunday night weekend finale.

Wheeling will host Reading again on Sunday, December 14 at 6:05 with a post-game skate with the team and Santa after the game for those who bring their skates and gloves.