During the season, Checkers broadcaster TJ Chillot checks in with a weekly blog highlighting everything Checkers hockey and beyond!
Happy Holidays Checkers fans, and welcome back to the Trapezoid, where we have tons of good tidings. I’m TJ Chillot, and with our final games before the holiday break approaching, let’s take a dive into some of the things I’m pondering over some hot cocoa. Time to jump In the Trapezoid with TJ.
Another Point Streak
The Checkers are currently riding a four-game point streak after winning two of their last four, and falling in overtime in the other two contests. It’s the second longest point streak of the season for the Checkers following their run from October 27th to November 10th where they took home five straight wins. It’s getting increasingly tight in the Atlantic Division and these points are huge. I’m sure the Checkers would have preferred to win those two overtime games, but in the long run, those two losses in OT are the equivalent to one extra win at the end of the season. It will come back around at the end of the year when playoff seeding gets locked in.
The Balinskis Bonus
Uvis Balinskis has only played in two games with the Charlotte Checkers this season, but has already left a mark with three total points. He earned his first goal on his first shot as a Charlotte Checker earlier this month, and in his last game he notched his first multi-point game as a Checker with two assists in the loss vs Bridgeport. On a team that is stacked with great offensive defenseman like Lucas Carlsson, Santtu Kinnunen, and others, it’s always nice to add some more punch to the blue-line.
Two Top-20 Goalies
At first glance, having two top-20 goalies might seem like a mediocre state, but it’s certainly something to build a foundation off of if you’re the Charlotte Checkers. Let’s look at it this way. There’s 32 AHL teams in the league, each of them has two goalies (and many carry three, but for the sake of keeping things simple let’s focus on just the two). That means out of the 64 total goaltenders in the AHL, Charlotte has two in the top third of the league. Coming into Thursday’s game against the Phantoms, Spencer Knight and Ludovic Waeber are 17th and 19th in the AHL in goals-against average, respectively. The pair have a combined record of 12-8-2-0 meaning the team has earned points in 14 of the 22 games either one has started, and both have an above 90% save-percentage to boot. Are they blowing the doors off the place like the duo in Hershey, not necessarily, but are they giving this team a strong enough backbone to be competitive and to allow the defensemen to take some more offensive risk? Absolutely.
Growing Giles
With a goal in his last game played, Patrick Giles now has four tallies on the season which eclipsed his mark from 2022-23 of three goals. It might not sound like much, but anyone who sees Giles on the ice, and is familiar with his game, can instantly see the stride he’s taken from year one to year two. He’s playing faster, with better vision, and hasn’t sacrificed any of the grit that Checkers fans have come to know and love.
Keep On Killin
The Checkers penalty kill remains one of their strongest units as the season goes on. At the time of this writing, they’re tied with Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins for the second-best conversion rate in the league at 87.4 percent, putting them just .08 percentage points behind the league-leading Utica Comets for top in the category. The team’s success, at least in my eyes, comes from their faceoff prowess throughout the opponent’s man-advantage. Guys like Justin Sourdif have been winning faceoffs and converting those draws to long clears that help shave time off the clock. What’s more is their forecheck pressure has been relentless, forcing teams into mistakes in the neutral zone and not allowing anyone to have a clear entry into the zone. Normally, when you see a player get escorted to the box, you feel a slight sense of dread, but not with this Checkers team. The penalty kill has been so solid and here’s to them continuing that success throughout the season.
On The Nice List
After 25 games into the season, you pretty much expect every player to have earned a penalty or two by this point. When you look at the team’s PIM leaders, all the way at the bottom are the handful of guys who’ve only played in a few games, the goalies, and then Skyler Brind’Amour. The former Qunnipiac Bobcat has skated in 20 games for the Checkers this season and has yet to be called for a penalty. I don’t really have much to say in addition to that, just thought it was quite the outlier of a stat. Clearly Brind’Amour is led by discipline and it’s paying off.
Happy Holidays
As we wrap up the 2023 portion of the season, I wanted to say Happy Holidays to you and your family. I’m incredibly lucky to have met so many amazing fans through my nearly three seasons with the Checkers, and I’m a better person for it. You folks are what make this organization the powerhouse that it is. The fans are what give this team identity and we can’t thank you enough! I hope your holidays are warm, enjoyable, and filled with memories. Thank you for another great year and I can’t wait to see what 2024 has in store for you all!
