Game Preview: Checkers vs. Lake Erie (March 15, 2014)

The Checkers play their first home game since Feb. 18, the first of a back-to-back set against the Lake Erie Monsters, at Time Warner Cable Arena tonight.

Having gone 6-3-1 on the longest run of road games in team history, including wins in six of their last seven, the Checkers have, for the time being, created some distance from a pack of teams trying to get back in playoff contention and joined those firmly on the bubble. In 10th place with 16 games to play, they’re within five points of eighth place with some games in hand and head-to-head match-ups remaining against teams above them.

This weekend’s games (tonight at 7 and Sunday at 1:30) conclude the four-game season series against Lake Erie – a team that needs wins even more desperately than the Checkers to have a chance at making the postseason. Each team won a game during an earlier set in Cleveland on Jan. 31 and Feb. 1.

Charlotte

The marathon run of road games the Checkers just completed – three separate trips of three or more games over the last three weeks – could have been terrible timing for the team as it attempted to string together enough wins to re-establish itself as a contender for the postseason. It started off somewhat slowly at 0-2-1 but finished strong, culminating with a 3-1 victory over the division-leading Texas Stars on Wednesday.

“It was a long trip and tough games in tough buildings to play in, but we were able to get some wins and get some days off so it wasn’t all work, work, work,” said coach Jeff Daniels. “We wanted to give ourselves a chance, and we did that coming off the road trip.”

“It was obviously a tough stretch on the road, but we were dealt those cards and I thought we did a great job,” said defenseman Mark Flood. “I think we’ve made some progression and played the way we needed to to win.”

As enthusiastic as the Checkers are about getting within shouting distance of a playoff spot in recent weeks, they’re also cognizant of the fact that it could slip away from them just as quickly. The same “four-point swing” games remaining on the schedule that present a golden opportunity to climb further in the standings could also allow the teams behind them to catch up, as is the case this weekend against 14th-place Lake Erie.

“We don’t want to get too high or too low,” said Flood. “It’s times like this that the coaches and the leaders on the team have to make sure the room stays even keel and we’re ready to play.”

“We can’t relax and think it’s going to be easy now that we’re at home,” said Daniels. “We have to prepare the same way, be hard to play against, manage the puck and do all those little things that we’re doing right now, which is a big reason why we’re winning.”

With the quick turnaround between games, there’s a good enough chance that John Muse and Mike Murphy will get one start apiece. Muse has won four in a row, including a Feb. 18 game he left due to injury and his next three upon returning to health, including a career-best, 43-save outing on Wednesday. Meanwhile, Murphy played one of his better games of the season in a 3-0 loss to Texas on Saturday.

Given some uncertainty at the position since Justin Peters’ conditioning stint came to an end on March 5, the performances from both players were encouraging.

“It was huge,” said Daniels. “It was good to know that both guys are feeling good about their games.”

The Checkers should be at full strength tonight with the exception of forwards Greg Nemisz and Brendan Woods. Both are expected to miss at least the next few weeks, with Nemisz potentially out for the remainder of the season as the team awaits a more exact diagnosis on the injury that has troubled him for the last month.

Lake Erie

The Monsters, who enter this weekend 12 points out of a playoff spot, will have to more or less run the table to have a shot at playing in the postseason. They've been playing close to .500 hockey of late with a 5-3-2 record in their last 10 games to climb ahead of Hamilton and out of the Western Conference cellar, leaving them very little room for error.

The Monsters are coming off a 4-1 win over Hamilton on Sunday, in which David van der Gulik had three points (2g, 1a) and Calvin Pickard, one of two goalies to shut out the Checkers this season along with Texas’ Jack Campbell last week, had 24 saves.

Pickard, a third-year pro drafted 49th overall by Colorado in 2010, has been shouldering the workload of late (starts in seven of the last eight games) with partner Sami Aittokallio not dressing for a game since Feb. 22. Rookie Kent Patterson has played just six career AHL games, including one this season when he stopped 34 of 38 shots in a loss at Toronto one week ago today.

The league’s 25th-ranked offensive team, Lake Erie does not have a bevy of high scorers, with Andrew Agozzino leading the way with 37 points in 58 games. Fellow forwards Brad Malone and Paul Carey joined the NHL’s Avalanche on Tuesday and have yet to return. One of the team’s biggest offensive threats is defenseman Matt Hunwick, a veteran of 292 NHL games with Boston and Colorado playing his first full AHL season since 2007-08, who ranks 18th among AHL defensemen with 29 points. Fellow blueliner Karl Stollery has assists in each of his last four games.

“They compete very hard, they’re a hard team to play against and their back end has a lot of D that can skate and generate some offense,” said Daniels. “I think every coach will say that every game is like a playoff game and we’ve got to approach it the same way.”

The Monsters will be without Mitchell Heard, who leads all AHL rookies with 152 penalty minutes, as the forward will serve the second of a two-game suspension tonight. Together with Daniel Maggio, who leads all AHL defensemen with 16 major penalties, Heard is part of why the Monsters are the league’s third-most penalized team with an average of 22.7 per game compared to the Checkers’ 13.9 (eighth fewest).

Checkers Notes

Against Lake Erie

Tonight will mark the 11th all-time meeting between Charlotte and Lake Erie since the Checkers joined the Western Conference prior to the 2011-12 season. Charlotte has a 4-3-3 record against the Monsters during that time, including a 2-2-0 record in Charlotte.

The Checkers split a pair of games in Lake Erie to begin the four-game season series, with Carolina Hurricanes goaltender Cam Ward, on a conditioning stint at the time, in net for a 1-0 loss on Jan. 31 and a 5-3 win on Feb. 1. Zach Boychuk leads the Checkers with three points against Lake Erie this season via his second hat trick of the season on Feb. 1.

Playoff Picture

With 16 games to play, the 10th-place Checkers currently trail eight seed Milwaukee by five points. They also trail seventh-place Rockford by seven points, with the Checkers having three games in hand on the IceHogs.

Of the Checkers' remaining games, six will be be played against the three teams immediately ahead of them (one against Milwaukee, one against Rockford and four against nine seed Oklahoma City, who they currently trail by three points with two games in hand). Seven will be played against teams below them in the Western Conference standings (three against 12-seed San Antonio, two against 13-seed Iowa and two against 14-seed Lake Erie).

All He Does is Win

Including a career-high, 43-save effort against Texas on March 12, Checkers goalie John Muse has won each of his last four starts, including three since returning from injury on March 7. It is his third streak of four or more wins this season, including a six-game streak from Nov. 30-Dec. 19 that tied a franchise record set twice by teammate Mike Murphy in the 2010-11 season and a five-game streak from Jan. 11-24. Now 20-11-0 on the season, he has won 17 of his last 23 decisions dating back to Nov. 23.

A winner of two NCAA National Championships with Boston College and an ECHL Kelly Cup with the Florida Everblades, Muse has an all-time AHL record of 38-21-3. He ranks second in the Checkers' AHL history with 37 wins, one more than Justin Peters and six fewer than Murphy.

The Big Three

Along with Texas (four), the Checkers are one of two teams to feature three or more players among the AHL's top 20 scorers. Zach Boychuk leads the Checkers and is tied for ninth in the AHL with 54 points, while Chris Terry and Aaron Palushaj are tied for 11th in the league with 53 points each.

All three players have held sole possesion of the Checkers' scoring lead at one point this season and are on pace for their best scoring seasons at the AHL level. At their current pace, all three players would break Boychuk's team record of 65 points set in 2010-11, with Boychuk on pace for 70, Terry on pace for 68 and Palushaj on pace for 67.

Sutter Moving Up

After scoring 19 points (8g, 11a) in his last 21 games dating back to Jan. 23, Checkers captain Brett Sutter has tied Zac Dalpe for the third-most points in the Checkers' AHL history (131 in 239 games). Only Chris Terry (236) and Zach Boychuk (206) have more.

Sutter, who recently played his 500th professional game on March 2, has averaged 0.70 points per game in his last two seasons with the Checkers compared to 0.33 points per game in his first five AHL campaigns with Quad City, Abbotsford and Charlotte. Despite missing 14 games while on NHL duty with Carolina this season, he ranks fourth on the Checkers in scoring with 33 points (10g, 23a) in 46 games.

Dolan Steps Up

Checkers center Sean Dolan set career highs with two goals, three points, five shots on goal and a plus-3 rating against the San Antonio Rampage on March 7. He followed that up with the primary assist on Aaron Palushaj's game-winning goal on March 9, giving him seven points in his last six games (3g, 4a).

Dolan, a 26-year-old who has signed three consecutive AHL contracts with Charlotte since intially joining the team on a pro tryout in January of 2012, has topped his career high for points in a single season with 13 (4g, 9a) in 33 games. He has nine points in 13 games, including two game-winning goals, since missing 21 games due to injury.

Boychuk's Goals

Zach Boychuk's 28 goals this season top his previous career high of 23 and are the fourth-most in the AHL With the three players ahead of him all on NHL rosters as of Saturday morning, he was the league's active goal-scoring leader.

Boychuk is on pace for 36 goals this season, which would break Chris Terry's club record of 34 set in the 2010-11 campaign. He already has the third-best goal scoring season by a Checkers player, with Terry and Jacob Mikflikier (29) the only players to ever score more than his 28, both of whom did so during the 2010-11 campaign. Terry and Boychuk rank first and second on the Checkers' all-time goals list with 96 and 94, respectively.

Boychuk is tied for the league lead with 14 power-play goals, breaking the old franchise record of 12 set by Mikflikier in 2010-11. He has three hat tricks this season, all since Jan. 24, making him responsible for four of six hat tricks ever recorded by a Checkers skater (Mikflikier, Brett Sutter).

Power Players

In Zach Boychuk (t-1st with 14) and Chris Terry (t-9th with 10), the Checkers have two of the AHL's top 13 in terms of power-play goals this season. Boychuk has already broken the single-season franchise record of 12 previously set by Jacob Micflikier in the 2010-11 campaign. Meanwhile, Mark Flood's seven power-play goals are tied for third among AHL defensemen and for the most by a Checkers blueliner in a single season (Bobby Sanguinetti in 2011-12).

The Checkers currently rank second in the AHL with a 21.8 percent success rate on the power play.

Road Warriors

The Checkers concluded their franchise-record run of 10 consecutive road games with a record of 6-3-1. They also managed to post winning records in two nine-game runs in previous seasons, including a 5-4-0 record from Oct. 28-Nov. 12, 2011, and 6-2-1 from Oct. 13-31, 2012.

The Checkers are 16-12-2 on the road this season.

Quick Hits

• Aaron Palushaj's 20th goal of the season on March 9 was also his sixth-game winner, putting him into a five-way tie for the AHL lead.
• Despite getting shut out by Texas on March 8, the Checkers are still averaging 3.57 goals over their last seven games.
• The Checkers have earned points in nine of their last 12 games (8-3-1), including wins in six of their last seven.
• Mark Flood ranks second among AHL defensemen with 12 goals. That sets a career high and is the most ever by a Charlotte defenseman in a single season.
• The Checkers' eight overtime games (5-3) and four shootouts (2-2) are the fewest in the league.
• Charlotte's two shorthanded goals are tied with Adirondack for the fewest in the league.

Player Streaks

• John Muse has won each of his last four starts since Feb. 18
• Brett Sutter has points in each of his last two games (March 9-12: 2g, 1a)
• Aaron Palushaj has assists and points in each of his last two games (March 9-12: 1g, 2a)
• Zach Boychuk has points in each of his last two games (March 9-12: 1g, 1a)
• Chris Terry has points in each of his last two games (March 9-12: 1g, 1a)

Milestones

• Zach Boychuk is one shy of 150 professional assists
• Justin Shugg is two shy of 100 professional points
• Brett Sutter is three shy of 200 professional points
• Aaron Palushaj played his 250th AHL game on March 12
• Brett Sutter played his 450th AHL game on March 9
• Michal Jordan played his 250th AHL game on March 9

Injuries

• Greg Nemisz - missed three games starting March 8
• Brendan Woods - missed nine games starting Feb. 22

Transactions

Incoming

• March 11 - (D) Michal Jordan reassigned to Charlotte from Carolina (NHL)

Outgoing

• None