After an early opening goal from the Pens, the Checkers took control of the game with a burst of their own late in the frame. Connor Bunnaman swooped into the zone on a penalty kill and buried a shorthanded tally to tie things up with under four minutes to go in the first, then Henry Bowlby turned on the jets for a slick goal just inside the buzzer to send the visitors into the locker room on top.
Bowlby turns on the jets and snags us the lead! pic.twitter.com/ZxPGEBETYG
— Charlotte Checkers (@CheckersHockey) January 5, 2023
The Checkers couldn’t keep that momentum rolling, however, and things turned the Penguins’ way from there. A pair of strikes in the back half of the second helped regain the lead for the home side, then Alex Nylander lit the lamp early in the third to extend that advantage.
Santtu Kinnunen would pull the Checkers back within striking distance with a broken-stick blast from the point that careened in, but Charlotte couldn’t quite find the equalizer down the stretch. A late empty netter squashed their comeback hopes and the Checkers skated off to a 5-3 defeat.
