The Checkers were only able to muster 20 shots on goal through the 60 minutes of play and saw all of them denied by Marlies netminder Kasimir Kaskisuo, including going scoreless on their six man advantages.
The Marlies opened the scoring midway through the first thanks to former Checker Josh Jooris, then blew things open with goals on back-to-back odd-man rushes early in the middle frame. The visitors kept rolling from there, registering as many shots over the second and third periods as the Checkers did over the entirety of the game, and tacked on another pair to clinch the lopsided victory.
QUOTES
Coach Mike Vellucci on the game
I thought it was a bad game by us by far. They out-skated us, out-worked us, were mentally stronger than we were and we were on our heels the whole game. We just weren’t ready.
Vellucci on his team’s play
We looked rattled. They’re more experienced than us and they took their experience and they used it against us. We got rattled at times, we weren’t making the right plays, we weren’t sacrificing our bodies and we weren’t strong on the puck. Our power play on the home stand here has been terrible. It was 3-for-35, not good enough. I’m going to make some changes on it this week with personal and we’re going to get the right people that want to be on the power play.
Vellucci on giving up odd-man rushes
Just mental mistakes. We talk about it and talk about it and then we do it three times in a row. We just got schooled by the champions. If you want to be the champion you’ve got to beat them. We didn’t play good enough against them and they schooled us.
Andrew Poturalski on playing against the defending champions
They definitely have a good team, a lot of good players and they know what it takes to win. To see their work ethic on a back-to-back with a tough Sunday game, they brought it tonight. We’ve got to take that, learn from it and move on.
