The Checkers’ two playing representatives at this season’s AHL All-Star Classic made a quick impact at Sunday’s skills competition.
Justin Peters earned the event’s Top Goaltender honors and Michal Jordan scored on four of his six combined attempts on goal in two different drills to lead the Western Conference to a come-from-behind, 12-11 victory in Providence, R.I.
Peters and Jordan will join Checkers coach Jeff Daniels for the All-Star Game on Monday night. Thanks to fan voting, both will be in the starting lineup.
The West trailed 8-6 going into the final Breakaway Relay event, which included all players and awarded one point for each goal scored. There, Peters stopped all six Eastern shooters and Jordan scored on his attempt against Binghamton’s Robin Lehner to seal the win.
Peters, in his second career AHL All-Star appearance and first since representing the Albany River Rats on the Canadian team in 2009-10, stopped 17 of the 19 shots he faced over the course of three different events. In addition to his perfect six-for-six showing in the Breakaway Relay, which included stops on two of the league’s top five active scorers, he denied all three shooters in the Pass and Score event and stopped eight of 10 in the Rapid Fire challenge.
Prior to scoring on his Breakaway Relay attempt, Jordan, making his first-ever appearance at the All-Star Classic, scored on three of his five shots against Niklas Svedberg of the hometown Providence Bruins in the Rapid Fire event. Of the 12 shooters who participated in that challenge, Jordan was one of only two players to score three or more goals.
A win on Monday would mark the second consecutive sweep for the Western Conference, which won both the skills competition and the game last season. The Checkers’ Chris Terry was a major contributor to last season’s win, scoring three points (2g, 1a) in an 8-7 shootout win in Atlantic City, N.J.
