Rookie Sergey Tolchinsky and veteran T.J. Hensick also scored for Charlotte, which gave coach Mark Morris a win in his Checkers debut.
One of last season’s top rookies and one of the final cuts from the NHL’s Carolina Hurricanes this season, McGinn recorded the third multi-goal game of his career. Exactly two minutes after Tolchinsky scored the game’s first goal just before the five-minute mark of the first period, McGinn netted his first on a breakaway after taking advantage of a broken stick by Iowa defenseman Mike Reilly.
After Iowa clawed one back on a power-play goal by Reilly as the Checkers ran into penalty trouble in the second period, McGinn then provided some breathing room midway through the third by blasting a shot from the top of the left circle off a nice feed from longtime Checkers scorer Zach Boychuk.
Hensick, a perennial top scorer in the AHL who was playing his first game for the Checkers, iced the game with a power-play goal in the final minutes of regulation.
Earlier in the game, Tolchinsky, an exciting offensive prospect who dazzled with an array of highlight-reel goals in junior hockey, had gotten the Checkers on the board by using his speed to get behind two Iowa defenders and out-wait diving goaltender Jeremy Smith for his first goal as a professional.
Defensemen Jaccob Slavin and Tyler Ganly assisted on the goal, making it a trio of first-year players who accounted for the Checkers’ first goal of the season.
