While there is a long list of reasons that the move will be beneficial to fans and the organization, an equally important aspect is the impact it will have on the team itself. For the first time, they will have all of their operations based out of one location.
“It’ll be nice,” said head coach Jeff Daniels. “We have a great facility here (at Extreme Ice Center) and downtown’s great too, but just having that one area that you know you’re going to go to every day is great.”
During their five-year tenure at Time Warner Cable Arena, the Checkers would practice at Extreme Ice Center in Indian Trail while spending game days in uptown . One particular group that it put a lot of stress on was the training and equipment staff, who would have to load and transport their stuff and the players’ gear to and from the practice rink, even during a home stand. They will certainly enjoy shedding that extra work with the move.
But even bigger than that is the fact that the players will now have one singular place for all their activity. From working out to practicing to morning skate to games, the team will be able to take care of all their business in one location. While that may seem like a trivial benefit, the impact it will have on young players taking their first steps into the pro game will be substantial.
“From a hockey standpoint, just to have that one area that the guys can really call home, it’ll be great,” said Daniels. “The constant that we’ll be there and kind of have a home base.”
To really help build prospects toward their NHL goals, the Checkers are developing an environment for those young players to thrive. The move to Bojangles’ will certainly be a big piece in that development. Some other news and notes from this week:
Return Of Sandlak
The move wasn’t made to punish Sandlak, however, but instead to help him out.
“He wasn’t playing a lot up here, so we wanted to try to get him some games,” said Daniels. “It’s important that first year to play a lot and we had a chance in the schedule where he had a chance to play three games in four days. He probably wasn’t going to play that weekend for us, so we took advantage of that opportunity to get him down and get him in some games.”
“He told me it’s not a bad thing,” said Sandlak. “He said it’s like Chris Terry coming down here for the three or four games he did (Terry joined the Checkers from Nov. 25 to Dec. 7 on a conditioning stint). It’s just more of a confidence thing to get my game where it needs to be.”
While Daniels made it clear that the move was a positive one, anytime a player is assigned to the ECHL it can be a tough pill to swallow, especially for a rookie who has hung with the team all year.
“Yeah it is kind of tough,” said Sandlak. “Nobody wants to get sent down. When he told me I was a little down, but I just took that down to Florida and showed what I can do. I was fortunate to get called back up when I did.”
“You have to look at the big picture,” said Daniels. “You have to put your ego aside if you want to become a better player. You can practice all you want, but those game situations are crucial. That’s what we talked about. Take it as a positive. Go down and play the game that’s going to get you up to the next level. Don’t change your game or think it’s going to be easy. Play the right way. And from all indications, he played well in those three games.”
In three games with the Everblades, Sandlak recorded three assists while logging a +4 rating and 17 penalty minutes. His strong play seemed to prove Daniels point of taking the stint as a positive and coming back stronger.
“It was a good experience for me, going down there and getting my confidence back and playing with the puck a little more and getting a couple points and bringing it back up here. Last game [with the Checkers] I thought I was more confident with the puck, making plays and was just better.”
Even with the solid stretch with Florida, Sandlak, who has four points (2g, 2a) in 38 games this season, is still working towards developing into an everyday player for Charlotte. With a game plan from Daniels on what he needs to do to achieve that, Sandlak will continue to hone his game here in the waning moments of the season.
“Just keeping my practice habits like they are,” said Sandlak on what Daniels’ biggest piece of advice was. “I feel like I’m practicing well, I just need to transfer that over to games. Hold the puck and make plays rather than throwing it away and making bad turnovers. That’s what I’m trying to work on and hopefully I can continue it through these last five games.”
“The quickness part of the game,” said Daniels regarding what Sandlak would be best off improving. “Being who he is. Be strong on the forecheck, be strong along the boards. Just have confidence. Have confidence with the puck and have the ability to make a play and make the right decision. He’s a kid that wants to get it, it just sometimes takes a little longer in that first year. As long as he keeps working at it he’ll be fine.”
Leaders Emerge
Much of that resiliency can be attributed to a core group of leaders that haven’t let this team’s work ethic falter, even in a down season.
“It’s been great,” said Daniels of his team’s leadership. “I’ve said that since day one. We had some tough stretches early but we’re playing some better hockey over the last couple months. It could have went the wrong way early. We’ve got a lot of good pros out here, not only in practice and games, but upstairs (in the weight room) before and after. We’ve been fortunate to have good character guys.”
Daniels specifically pointed to Ben Holmstrom, Greg Nemisz, Drew MacIntyre, Kyle Hagel and Chad LaRose as guys who come out and practice hard every day and hold their teammates to that same level.
The Checkers have been in an interesting situation this season, in that two of the three players named captains at the start of the year have been absent for the majority of it. Michal Jordan, named the third captain in Checkers history, has spent most of his 2014-15 campaign in the NHL with the Hurricanes, while Nemisz, named an alternate captain, was lost for the year early on in the season. That led to Hagel and LaRose being given A’s alongside Holmstrom.
But Daniels stressed that the leadership has come from anywhere, regardless of titles.
“It’s huge,” said Daniels of other players stepping up in leadership roles. “When we made the announcement, we said that just because you don’t wear a letter on your jersey doesn’t mean you can’t be a leader. Guys like Rosey and Hags that weren’t wearing letters early are still leaders on this team.”
With the young nature of the roster, Daniels has even seen his younger skaters taking on those roles as well. With more and more incoming college and juniors players joining the team late, it’s a chance for everyone to take on that role.
“Even first year guys, they’re beyond the point where they’re rookies,” said Daniels. “You know what this league’s about, you’re a part of this team, you can lead also.”
New Blood
With Roland McKeown joining the team this week, the Checkers currently have four players signed to ATO’s on their team, with the possibility that more could come on, as first-round pick Haydn Fluery’s Red Deer Rebels were recently eliminated from the WHL playoffs. That leaves the Checkers with an influx of young blood looking to get their first taste of the pro game, and the established players on the team have been welcome hosts to helping the prospects.“You look at a lot of these guys, they’ve been in the same situation,” said Daniels. “I remember Chucky (Zach Boychuk) coming in and playing a couple games in Albany, Dennis Robertson last year, Brock McGinn played some playoff games, I remember Homer (Ben Holmstrom) in Adirondack when we were playing against them. So all those guys have been through it and they understand it. It’s a good opportunity to bring guys in and get them ready for the next level.”
Several of the newcomers can look to other Checkers that have taken identical routes to theirs. Rasmus Tirronen and Brett Pesce can turn to John Muse and Robertson as examples of college players making the leap to pro, while younger players like Josh Wesley can look to McGinn as someone who experienced an AHL stint before returning for another year of junior. All in all, it seems to be a very beneficial practice for the development of prospects.
But there is another aspect to bringing in those guys. For some, it could be tough to see these newcomers joining the team and possibly overtaking the spots in the lineup that they have worked all year to secure. While that is an understandable worry, Daniels does his best to quell those threatening feelings.
“Yeah you’ve got to be conscious of that,” said Daniels. “These guys have battled hard all year for you and you don’t want to throw that out the window. You’ve got to respect that. The guys that come in have to respect that also. They’re here to practice, if they get a chance to play, that’s great, but right now take your practices as games and push yourself to get ready for the next level.”
With the release of Mike Cornell and the assignment of Austin Levi Mondays, there will most likely be one or more open spots on the blue line for this weekend’s games. Should the Checkers not go the PTO route to fill it, one or more of the young blue liners could be poised to make their pro debut.
