Iowa Wild 4, Charlotte Checkers 1
After the Checkers enjoyed their best start of the season in their first match-up with Iowa one night earlier, the Wild returned the favor on Saturday.

Iowa avenged Friday’s 5-1 loss by scoring three first-period goals, matching Charlotte’s feat from clubs’ first meeting of the season, on their way to a 4-1 victory. Greg Nemisz scored the lone goal for the Checkers, giving him two in as many games, while John Muse made 25 saves in his second start of the season.

The loss dropped Charlotte to 2-5-0 on the season. Meanwhile, Iowa, their West Division rival, earned their first standing point of the season by improving to 1-5-0.

Hoping to earn consecutive victories for the first time this season, the Checkers instead fell into an early deficit when Iowa’s Jordan Schroeder and Zack Phillips scored 54 seconds apart before the game was six minutes old. Schroeder’s goal came off a nice cross-crease pass from Zack Mitchell as the Checkers turned the puck over and missed a later chance to clear it from their zone, while Phillips’ goal, which was upheld after a lengthy review, came amid some controversy as Cody Almond had bowled over Muse just after the shot.

Before a first period that saw the Wild out-shoot the Checkers 14-6 could end, Schroeder, a 2009 first-round NHL draft pick who scored the Wild’s lone goal on Friday, struck again off a turnover by coming in alone on Muse and firing a shot into the opposite corner over the netminder’s blocker.

Prior to their first-period explosion, the Wild ranked as the AHL’s least-prolific offense with just eight total goals in their first five games.

After a scoreless second period, Nemisz, who netted his first of the season to put the Checkers up 3-0 late in the first period of Friday’s game, saw a Danny Biega point shot deflect in off his skate to get his team within two goals with 15 minutes to play. Despite out-shooting the Wild 14-6 in the third period, those additional goals never came as Charlotte couldn’t make good on a power-play chance with 10 minutes remaining, causing them to fall to 0-for-6 on the night, and eventually gave up an empty-net goal to Iowa’s Kurtis Gabriel with seven seconds to play.

Having split their first two divisional games of the season against the Wild, the Checkers now return home to play a four-game home stand that begins with a Halloween-day matinee against the Hamilton Bulldogs (12 p.m. start).

NOTES

Charlotte out-shot its opponent for the first time this season (35-29) … Trevor Carrick, who also had a fight against Gabriel, picked up the secondary assist on Charlotte’s goal … Phil Di Giuseppe led the Checkers with seven shots on goal, more than doubling his previous career high of three … Chad LaRose earned 12 penalty minutes – two for a slashing minor and an additional 10-minute misconduct while serving the first penalty … The Checkers have killed 21 of 23 penalties on the road this season. Gabriel’s empty-netter was technically a power-play tally … Charlotte defenseman Keegan Lowe missed the game due to injury.