Checkers News

Mired in their worst winless-streak of the season, the Checkers bounced back with a 5-2 stomping of the Texas Stars on Sunday.

The Checkers set the tone right out of the gates, outshooting the Stars 16-5 in the first frame and lighting the lamp twice courtesy of Justin Shugg and Keegan Lowe. Rookie Patrick Brown extended the lead just 37 seconds into the second period with his first pro goal, with a deflection up and over Stars goalie Jussi Rynnas.

Texas got on the board later in the frame, with defenseman Jyrki Jokipakka threading a wrister from the slot past Drew MacIntyre, but Alex Aleardi responded quickly for the Checkers. Aleardi, recalled from the ECHL the morning of the game, carried the puck into the zone with speed and sniped a laser into the short side corner to put the home team up by three once again.

With a power play late in the third, the Stars pulled goalie Jack Campbell, who replaced Rynnas at the start of the period, in order to have a 6-on-4 advantage. The move backfired, however, as rookie Trevor Carrick flipped a puck from his own goal line that bounced all the way down the ice and into the vacated net to make it 5-1. Derek Meech tallied a goal with just over five minutes left, but it wasn’t enough to spark a rally, and the Checkers took home the 5-2 win.

For the third time this season the Checkers won the second half of a back-to-back series with the Stars after dropping the first. The difference between last night’s disappointing loss and tonight’s romp was a simple one.

“The pucks were going in,” said head coach Jeff Daniels. “Some nights they go in and some nights they don’t, and we’ve had more nights where they don’t go in.”

After ending last night’s contest by surrendering four goals in the final frame, the Checkers came out red hot, peppering Rynnas right from the start and building a two-goal lead quickly.

“I thought we came out with a purpose, we were skating, attacking the net and making good habits,” said Daniels. “We definitely came out strong and it kind of led us to the win.”

The team’s ability to rebound from disappointing performances has been a bright spot all year, with praise being given to the leadership in the locker room and the overall heart and compete of the players.

“We show up to the rink every day ready to work, and that’s the makeup of that team and the mentality of that team,” said Daniels. “They’re workers. They want to grind it out. I knew we’d come out and work, it was just a matter of if we were going to score some goals.”

Veteran forward Kyle Hagel did his part to kick start his club, dropping the gloves early on in the contest. Less than four minutes later, the Checkers would get on the board.

“We’ve been on a losing streak and sometimes you need something like that to spark some fire into the guys,” said Hagel. “The boys in the room seemed to appreciate it, and it always feels good when we score one when you’re sitting in the box. That makes you feel like it was worthwhile and it was a good spot in the game for a fight.”

The Checkers now have a tough stretch ahead of them, as they will embark on a four-game road trip to face three of the conference’s top eight teams in Grand Rapids, Milwaukee and Rockford. The key to gaining some traction in the standings will be consistency, something that has eluded the Checkers so far this season. But with more performances like tonight, those results should start coming.

“We can’t just win one, lose one, lose another and then win one,” said Brown. “We’ve got to keep winning. We’ve got to rack up some points and start making a climb in the standings.”

“We don’t want to change our game,” said Daniels. “I know our record is not good on the road but we’ve played some of our best hockey on the road, we just haven’t been rewarded for it. We’ve just got to bring what we brought tonight to the road and hopefully we saved some goals for the road.”

“When I look at our team I really don’t see us as a losing team because almost every single game that we lose is by one goal or a late comeback in the third period or we out-shot them and other teams are still finding a way to win,” said Hagel. “We’re a lot better team than our win/loss record indicates. It felt good to get rewarded with a win tonight. Hopefully that’s the start of a more fortunate streak for us.”

NOTES

The Checkers’ five goals were one more than they had in their previous three games combined. It marked their fourth game with five or more goals this season … Charlotte broke a four-game winless streak (0-3-1) that marked its longest of the season … Justin Shugg’s three points (1g, 2a) were a new career high. He has goals in each of his last three games, marking the second time he has accomplished that feat this season (a four-game streak from Nov. 14-21) … Keegan Lowe’s effort (1g, 1a) marked his second career multi-point game and first since Oct. 31, 2013 (2a) … Aleardi, recalled earlier in the day from the ECHL’s Florida Everblades, was playing his third game in two-and-a-half days … The Checkers have gone six consecutive games without scoring or allowing a power-play goal … Carrick’s empty-net goal was the Checkers’ sixth shorthanded tally of the season, giving them three more than they had all of last season … Shugg, Lowe and Dennis Robertson all posted a game-high, plus-3 rating … Drew MacIntyre made 26 saves in his first game back from representing Canada at the Spengler Cup … Forwards Gabriel Desjardins, Greg Nemisz and Brody Sutter and defenseman Beau Schmitz missed the game due to injury.