With the team releasing Rick DiPietro from his tryout on Tuesday and Mike Murphy still battling an injury, the Checkers signed Rob Madore to a tryout deal ahead of Wednesday’s game at Norfolk. Madore, who became Charlotte’s playoff starter under an AHL contract last season, had been playing on an ECHL deal with the Cincinnati Cyclones.
Madore joins his partner for Wednesday’s game, John Muse, as former Checkers goalies who rejoined the team on PTOs from the ECHL level this season. Madore, Murphy and Muse, the three goalies on Charlotte’s current roster, were also the goalies that the team possessed at the end of last season.
Should Madore appear in a game with Charlotte, he would be come the seventh goalie to do so this season. No other AHL team has used more than five.
With the Cyclones, where he was briefly a teammate of new Checkers forward Philippe Cornet, Madore posted a 7-3-0 record with a 3.03 goals-against average, .903 save percentage and one shutout. Prior to returning to the ECHL, where he played the bulk of his first pro campaign with the Checkers’ affiliate in Florida last season, the 25-year-old University of Vermont product had also spent time in training camp with the NHL’s Florida Panthers and the AHL’s San Antonio Rampage.
After joining the Checkers for the first time when Justin Peters joined the Hurricanes on March 4 of last season, Madore finished the regular season with a record of 5-3-0, a 1.83 goals-against average, .951 save percentage and two shutouts in his first taste of AHL action – a performance that helped the team clinch a playoff spot and allowed him to beat out Murphy and Muse for the starting job in the postseason.
Madore started each of the Checkers’ five playoff games against Oklahoma City but was pulled from his last two starts, giving up four goals on 17 shots in each game.
