Photo by Joe Lovell The Wheeling Nailers’ David Drake moves in for a shot against the Norfolk Admirals on Wednesday inside WesBanco Arena. The Nailers dropped their Kelly Cup playoff game 5-1 to trail the Admirals 3-0 in the series.

WHEELING — The Wheeling Nailers have dug themselves a hole about as deep as it could go following Wednesday night’s 5-1 loss to visiting Norfolk inside WesBanco Arena. With the setback, the Nailers now trail the Admirals 3-0 in the first round of the Kelly Cup Northern Division best-of-7 semi final playoff series.

However, if there is a silver lining for Wheeling, the remaining four games of the Eastern Conference series will be played at home. Game 4 is Friday at 7:10 p.m.. Should the Nailers stay alive, Game 5 would be Saturday and game 6, if necessary, on Sunday.

“I don’t think any of us envisioned coming into the series that we’d be down 3-0. I wasn’t shocked that we were down 2-0,” Wheeling head coach Derek Army said. “It’s definitely surprising.”

After a scoreless first 20 minutes in which the Nailwers held an 8-6 advantage in shots, Norfolk scored a pair of goals in a span of 2-minutes, 22-seconds to take a 2-0 lead. Ryan Chyzowski carried the puck down the left wing before dropping a pass for Hank Crone who then found Denis Smirnov for a one-timer from the right circle that zipped past Sergei Murashov. It became 2-0 moments later when Sean Montgomery took a feed from Chyzowski and buried a laser past Murashov.

“We’ve talked about scoring the first goal, but when they scored two early in the second period that kind of put us back on our heels a little,” Army added. “Every time we kind of clawed back in, they pulled back away.”

Wheeling finally solved Thomas Milic, who had stopped the first 80 shots he had faced in the series, when Matt Koopman picked up a loose puck near center ice and beat Milic on a short-handed breakaway. That goal seemed to spark the hosts as Murashov came up big moments later, but the Admirals weren’t finished.

Chyzowski collected a drop pass from Crone in the high slot and somehow lifted the puck over Murashov’s left shoulder while being hauled down. The puck ticked off the post and into the cage for a 3-1 advantage.

“The very next shift we lost the face off and then took a penalty,” Army recalled. “That gave them the momentum again. With not much time left, we had to find a way to get out of the period, but instead, the puck ended up in the back of our net again.”

Colton Young and Bryce Brodzinski scored third-period goals for the Admirals, with the last coming into an empty net.

“I think we have given them a lot of their offense,” Army noted. “They are a good hockey team but we have given them a lot of free really good scoring chances.”

Milic, who stopped 35 of the 36 shots he faced, has now recorded 97 saves on 98 shots in the series.

“He’s a really good goaltender,” Army said of Milic. “I think we’ve made it rather easy for him at times, but he made a couple of big-time saves when he had to.”

Murashov, who set an AHL record for consecutive wins earlier this year for Wilkes-Barre/Scranton, had 17 saves on 21 shots.

“Our power-play has been disappointing to say the least,” Army continued. “We spent a lot of time this week working on it. Our compete wasn’t quite there. We took some shots that we shouldn’t have taken on the power play and we passed up some opportunities we shouldn’t have passed up.”

LOOSE PUCKS

— Healthy scratches for Wheeling included Peter Laviolette and Lars Radne.

–The game’s No. 1 star was Chyzowski and the No. 2 was Milic. Koopman earned the No. 3 star.

–The attendance was announced as 1,685.