BY: Gerry Cantlon, Howlings
HARTFORD, CT – The Charlotte Checkers superior puck management abilities and their high-end offensive skills led by Janne Kuokkanen wrestled away a 3-1 Hartford Wolf Pack lead to pull away like a locomotive and gave them a 7-4 win Friday night at the XL Center.
How strong was Charlotte’s puck control? The Wolf Pack had just 12 shots over the final two periods and most of those came on the power play.
The Checkers record improves to 18-6-1-0 (37 pts). They saw their top-line account for 11 points and a combined plus-9. Kuokkanen had three points, two goals, and an assist, while his other two linemates each had four points. Nicolas Roy had a goal and three assists, and Martin Necas (four assists).
“We put that line together about three weeks ago and its taken time for them to get adjusted,” former Hartford Whaler, and now Charlotte head coach, Mike Vellucci, said. “They were hungry tonight. Every time they play, they want to produce. They get right out there. We were able to get goals in the last minute in the first two periods, and those are killers on an opponent. We did a good job staying on the puck.”
His bench counterpart, Keith McCambridge, felt the same about his opponent’s play.
“I’ve seen a game turn on a dime like that. Obviously, that was a turning point in the game for us. We liked our start. We just didn’t sustain it. They are number one for a reason. They have size and they make the plays,”
The Pack slipped to .500 with an 11-11-1-2 record for 25 points and the lose slipped them into sixth place.
Gregg McKegg and Nick Schilkey each had two points games for Charlotte as well.
The Wolf Pack play in Hershey Sunday night and won’t be home again until December 19th against the Providence Bruins.
The game turned the Checkers’ way in a twenty-second span late in the first period. The Checkers seemed on the ropes at that point.
The Checkers counter-punched with two goals in the last minute of regulation as the Wolf Pack team defense collapsed.
Kuokkanen, the Checkers leading scorer and eleventh best overall bagged both goals.
First, with 25.4 seconds left, Roy took a pass from Necas found Kuokkanen who skated into an open seam on the left wing and fired his tenth goal of the season past Alexander Georgiev.
Then with 5.5 seconds left, four of the five players on the ice for the Checkers touched the puck inside the Wolf Pack end of the ice.
Mikael Cajkovsky started it with a pass to Roy, who in turn fed it to Necas, who then sent a feathered short pass to Kuokkanen who slammed home his eleventh of the season into the back of the net and tied the game at three. The goal stunned the Wolf Pack crowd.
“We made some mistakes and got behind and that line was special. They got one goal for us and came right back and got us another. They’re two second-year guys and a first-year guy. They’re young and all move the puck very well. They gave us a lot of jump at that point going into the first intermission. They wanted to take it over and they did,” said Vellucci.
All total there were four goals, two from each team, during a 2:55 span. The two late goals scored by the Checkers came after the Pack had built a 3-1 lead and swung the momentum of the game in their favor.
The Wolf Pack’s Peter Holland had a strong night offensively scoring two goals that put the onus on his line’s shoulder.
“Our line was out there in the last minute of the first. We’re up 3-1. If they don’t get those two goals going into the second period, it’s a different game. They capitalized twice and there’s your game.”
What bothered Holland as much was how they let Charlotte dictate the play.
“We gave them time and space to make those plays. We came in with a game plan to have them defend us, use our forechecking, and chipping pucks in they weathered our storm and then we started to play into their system and it cost us because we didn’t do a good enough job of stopping them.”
The Checkers remembered the previous game with the Pack the previous week.
“I didn’t like the way we played last week, and credit Hartford. They played well a better team than they were last year. We played much better tonight,” said Vellucci.
The second period the Wolf Pack had just four shots on goal because the Checkers maintained puck possession for most of the period.
Georgiev was under siege in the last five minutes of the first period was on his toes early with a glove save at 1:52 and the Checkers kept the puck and the Wolf Pack were chasing.
Charlotte scored twice in the last five minutes of the period including another late goal.
The Checkers took the lead at 4-3 with more mastery of the puck inside the Wolf Pack end of the ice.
Just as they did on the tying goal, this time on the power-play, four of the five Checkers touched the puck.
This sequence started at the right point. Nick Schilkey sent a short pass to Julien Gauthier, who in turn put a shot on net. The puck came back to Schilkey and his shot went over Georgiev at 15:52. The Pack netminder was knocked down on the play and he argued for interference but it went for no avail.
The Pack had two great chances to tie the game right after the fourth Charlotte goal. Vinni Lettieri had a breakaway, but was stoned by Scott Darling. With 2:35 left, Cole Schneider had a clear breakaway and kicked out his right leg as he went for the shot on the backhand, but lost the puck and Darling smothered it.
With 12.1 seconds left, Checkers defenseman Trevor Carrick was at the left point and got the puck from Nicolas Roy. He unloaded a rocket of a shot over the top shelf through a partially screened Georgiev by Kuokkonnen. Georgiev had zero chance of stopping Carrick’s fourth of the season.
The Pack played very well in the first period for 18 minutes got a well earned 3-1 lead.
The Pack went up 1-0 on their third shot of the game. Brandon Crawley came up the middle of the ice, and with a good head of steam used the Checkers’ Carrick as a screen. His high wrist shot fooled Darling who clearly lost sight of it. Crawley scored his third goal of the year and at 8:19.
Greg McKegg got Charlotte even at 14:37. The Checkers forechecking created their first goal with pressure. The Checkers belted defenseman in the left wing corner. McKegg completed a sweet three-way passing play as Sickilikey picked up the puck and quickly fed it over to Andrew Poturalski. He in turn found the McKegg open in front. McKegg made a nice sweep forehand on Georgiev for the goal.
At 178:05, the Wolf Pack regained the lead when Ville Meskanen’s forechecking created a turnover. Tim Gettinger retrieved a loose puck behind the net on the right wing side and went around the net. He reversed the puck back to Holland almost on the goal line and snapped a short-side shot on Darling who wasn’t able to recover to react to the play as he was tracking Gettinger.
“I yelled for him as he was skating away. Good thing he heard me. He made a real nice play to find me. It was bit of a lucky shot. I saw he (the goalie) was cheating to his right I had the spot.”
More solid forechecking from the Wolf Pack got them another goal. 36 seconds later the goal put the Pack temporarily in the driver’s seat. The Checkers Jake Bean was facing pressured and put a pass up the middle. It was picked off by Shawn St. Amant, who put a shot on net. Darling made the save, but the rebound was right here for team captain, Cole Schneider, and banged in his eighth of the season and a seemingly solid 3-1 lead.
The Pack closed the game scoring for Hartford on the powerplay. Holland made a great deflection up high of Gilmour’s left point shot at 18:11, for his sixth of the season and second of the night.
The goal was sandwiched around two Checker empty net goals by Poturalski and Roy.
NOTES:
McCambridge said Georgiev would start Saturday night against Hershey
The New York Rangers’ Hartford Shuffle continues as Matt Beleskey was recalled AGAIN. The team then dipped back back to the Maine Mariners (ECHL) for two more players. Centerman, Terrence Wallin, was sent down earlier in the week and was recalled. Forward, Alex Kile, who’s registered 15 points in 15 games and a four-game scoreless recall with the Utica Comets (AHL) was signed to a PTO deal. Kile is another Michigan (Big 10) alumnus joining Boo Nieves.
The Wolf Pack had three other Wolverines the past few years in Chris Summers (with Wilkes Barre/Scranton), Chris Brown (Nuremberg Germany-DEL) and Steven Kampfer (Boston).
Pack scratches were: Terrence Wallin and Vince Pedrie.
WOLF PACK LINES:
Holland-Gettinger-Meskanen
Nieves-Kile-Butler
O’Donnell-St. Amant-Lettieri
Fontaine-Schneider-Leedahl
Bigras-O’Gara
Gilmour-Lindgren
Crawley-Hajak
Checkers have the third best offense in the AHL with 89 goals (now 89) just one ahead of Lehigh Valley. The Pack have the fourth worst goals against at 89 goals.
Charlotte has fourth best goals against with 65 goals against. The top three are San Jose (44), Syracuse (53), Iowa (64) the Checkers are followed Rochester with (68) and Providence (69).
The Pack now have scored 78 goals on the season.
Charlotte’s PP is 13th best at 20.5%. The Wolf Pack are 16th at 19.3% and the Charlotte PK is fifth best at 85.7% and the Wolf Pack are 19th at 80.6%.
The Checkers scratched defenseman Josh Wesley, the son of former Whaler, Glen Wesley, who’s now a development skills coach with St. Louis.
Necas was named to the Czech Republic WJC team for a second time mid-week.
The Checkers dressed veteran Zach Stortini for just the seventh time this year. He is in a role as a player/assistant coach this season. Last season, he saw his 17-year-streak of 100+ PIM a season (juniors and pro) snapped. He has 1,787 PIMs putting him 18th all time in AHL history. He’s two PIMs behind ex-Wolf Pack and CT Whale, Kris Newbury.
UCONN dropped their seventh straight in Boston losing 3-2 in the back-end of a home-and-home Hockey East meeting with the BC Eagles. Final exams and Christmas break are now upon them and they won’t play again until December 31st in New Haven against Yale University in their first visit to Ingalls Rink.
The Checkers had two recalls from Florida in the past 24 hours. First, goalie Jeremy Helvig who played his junior hockey with Kingston (OHL), and Alex Nedeljkovic were recalled by Carolina. Steven Lorentz made the trip up from Estero, FL. Last year, when the Checkers came to Hartford, Lorentz was demoted to Florida the day before.
Bringing Helvig seems odd as they assigned goalie Callum Booth (Salisbury Prep) to Reading (ECHL) last week.
Connor Clifton, the former QU Bobcat, was returned to Providence by Boston.
In a rare AHL two-for-two swap, Wilkes Barre/Scranton moves Tobias Lindberg and Stefan Elliott to Belleville for Macoy Erkamos, and veteran Ben Sexton.
Logan Pyett, the ex-CT Whale, is back in AHL after beating sarcoma cancer, but was released after ten games with Hershey where he had an assist and was a minus-5.
Reid Duke, the first ever player signed by the Las Vegas Golden Knights was recalled from Chicago Wolves.
Brian Morgan, the former UCONN Husky, is on his fourth team this fall. After scoring a goal in his first game with the Pensacola Ice Flyers (SPHL), Morgan was signed again by the Florida Everblades (ECHL). They released him after three gamers several weeks ago.
