Much like last night, the Checkers came out swinging, putting consistent pressure on the struggling Moose, but could only pot one goal, with David Wohlberg collecting a pass off a Zach Boychuk steal and sniping it past Manitoba goalie Eric Comrie early in the frame. But the Moose found the equalizer in the final minute of play when Scott Kosmachuk swooped in on a neutral zone turnover and picked his corner to send the teams into the second period tied at one.
The Moose continued to hold the home team at bay, but eventually the pressure that the Checkers had been bringing all night finally broke Manitoba down. Phil Di Giuseppe ripped a wrister off the far post late in the second to take the lead, then Ethan Werek and Derek Ryan struck back-to-back to kick off the third and extend the Checkers’ lead to three goals. Charlotte stifled any hopes of a Moose comeback down the stretch and skated away with the 4-1 victory and the weekend sweep.
For as close as the score was through the first 40 minutes, the Checkers seemed to clearly be the better team. Still, the Moose wouldn’t roll over.
“They gave us all we could handle and fortunately the puck started going in for us,” said head coach Mark Morris. “We had some really great goals there in the third.”
The three-goal burst to end the game for Charlotte was somewhat of a cathartic release, as the Checkers had been racking up the chances over the last two nights but things just weren’t working in their favor. When their offense finally broke through, the goals came in bunches and their play escalated overall.
“When you wear a team down like we had been the last two games, they’re going to start going in,” said Wohlberg. “We just had to stay consistent. The first period yesterday I think we hit two or three posts so it’s just nice to see guys getting rewarded.”
With Wohlberg’s game-opening goal, the Checkers’ fourth line continued to be a force on both ends of the ice. Their unique make up has helped them to be consistent contributors.
“I think (Kyle Hagel) and I are there to kind of bang bodies around and (Boychuk) is there to make his finesse plays that he’s been doing his whole career,” said Wohlberg of his line’s chemistry. “He also helps us out with the kind of passes that he can make and it’s a lot of fun playing with him.”
With his team ahead by just one goal going into the third, Morris made a slight alteration to his lines, swapping Justin Shugg and Di Giuseppe. The move seemed to spark the squad a bit as they turned on the jets in the third.
“I thought we needed to do something to get Brock (McGinn) and Di Giuseppe going,” said Morris. “I thought that maybe just a little change in chemistry would do it. Move one guy and sometimes things start to unfold. It got Derek on the scoresheet and it’s been a while since he scored, so sometimes you guess right and I was happy to see those guys find that chemistry that we were looking for.”
The Checkers will now enjoy a much-needed week of rest before their next series with Chicago starting on Friday. That gap will give them some time to recuperate from a particularly brutal stretch of games, as well as work on fine-tuning their play.
“It’s great, especially on that little California road trip and some of the jet lag is still kind of there,” said Trevor Carrick, who finished with two assists. “This week is going to be huge to get back to your normal sleep pattern. A full week of practice will be nice to go over things and the rest is going to be huge.”
“We had a long two weeks in California and then came right home and played,” said Wohlberg. “It will be nice to reset, recharge the batteries and then get back to the things on the ice and try to focus on stuff we didn’t so well and stuff that we can do better and then come out flying on Friday.”
