Rochester jumped ahead early in the opening frame when Graham Slaggert caught a stretch pass and buried a breakaway chance. That one-goal lead would hold the next 40-plus minutes as the two sides locked in a tight stalemate.
Midway through the third a seeing-eye point shot gave Rochester some insurance, but the visitors wouldn’t need it as Charlotte’s top-ranked offense couldn’t quite find its footing. The Amerks tacked on one more via an empty netter and Devon Levi capped off his 30-save shutout - snapping the Checkers’ hot streak.
QUOTES
Coach Geordie Kinnear on the gameI thought it was a good hockey game. I thought the battle and the compete – the execution wasn’t always there, but I thought we had some looks and the goalie played well, our goalie was good. It was a good hockey game, we fell on the wrong end of it, but move on and continue to build.
Kinnear on what his team could have done to generate more offense
Just execution, probably. There were looks there. It’s just a hockey game. Sometimes it’s random like you get your chances and the other team is good. I’m sure they didn’t like their game last night, so give them a ton of credit, and I give our guys a ton of credit. A good hockey game and we fell on the wrong end of it. Move on.
Kinnear on acknowledging the team’s effort level
They know it. They know when they work hard and when they don’t, I’ll remind them. It’s a good group and they work extremely hard and are competitive. I’d like to win all of them, but we’re going to take lessons from the game before this game and continue to move forward. We’ll get a practice here and then we get on the road. Obviously to some tough buildings and we have guys banged up, but guys have to continue to step up and be consistent.
