It was another tightly contested battle for Charlotte, but Providence came through late in the first and clinged to that one-goal advantage until well into the third.
The Checkers continued to pour on the chances, but still couldn’t quite break their scoring drought. Connor Bunnaman finally reversed the home team’s fortunes, however, collecting a ricocheted puck off the end boards and burying it to tie the game with just under seven minutes remaining in regulation to force the contest to overtime.
The extra frame didn’t last long as Riley Nash corralled a pass and circled into the slot before wiring a wrister that beat Bruins netminder Brandon Bussi and claimed a crucial two points in the standings for Charlotte.
Facing a strong Providence attack, Alex Lyon stood tall between the pipes for Charlotte - denying 21 of the 22 shots he saw and earning his 100th AHL win.
BACK IN THE WIN COLUMN pic.twitter.com/ZTuey9OEIv
— Charlotte Checkers (@CheckersHockey) December 23, 2022
QUOTES
Coach Geordie Kinnear on the gameWe got the result tonight, but I like the way we’ve played in a lot of the games that we lost. We just stuck with it as a group. I thought it was a total team effort tonight and I thought everyone was pulling the rope in the right direction. Everyone played to their identity. It was a great team win. We want to continue to build and get better, but it always feels good to win.
Kinnear on Connor Bunnaman’s goal
Sometimes it’s not going to go your way on the power play but you stick with it, stick with it and get the opportunity to score a goal. He’s had a lot of chances in that area so it’s nice to see him be rewarded for the extra work he’s putting in at practice. When you practice hard, put the work in and you work at your craft and do the right things, you get rewarded.
Kinnear on the physical game
I was proud of the guys because you have to have emotion, you have to have physicality and you have the willingness to win one-on-one battles. Whether it’s the physical part of it that you saw early or just puck battles and playing through people, it’s an important part of the game and something we want to continue to do as a group.
Riley Nash on the win
It feels great. They’re a really good team. We played them tough in some games and haven’t been our best in other ones. Tonight we played hard for the entire game. The score indicates that there wasn’t a lot of room out there, and our power play got off the schneid too. You’re percentage can be crap but you’ve just got to score at big times and that was obviously one of those. Hopefully we can take that confidence and move forward.
Nash on the team struggling to score goals until late in this game
It's hard. You can coach a lot of X’s and O’s and talk about systems and a lot of things, but scoring goals is one of those things that takes that inner belief and inner confidence. You’ve got to shoot pucks. I thought we played a really good game last weekend where we had like 45 or almost 50 shots and nothing seemed to go in. It’s just one of those things where sometimes the lid comes off and guys start to feel a little bit better and they start making those plays and start taking that extra half second to bury it instead of just taking a shot on goal.
