After surrendering a power-play tally in the early moments of the first, the Checkers rebounded in a big way with three unanswered strikes of their own.
Logan Hutsko was a driving force of that offensive push, as the rookie forward lit the lamp to even the score late in the opening frame and then set the stage for each of the following two tallies to finish the night with a team-best three points on the board.
The Monsters made a final push in the third, narrowing Charlotte’s lead to one with another goal on the man advantage, but the Checkers locked things up down the stretch and tacked on an empty-net dagger to wrap things up. Spencer Knight continued his strong play between the pipes, ending the night with 26 saves and freezing out Cleveland for a 4-2 victory.
All tied up thanks to Logan Hutsko's ninth of the season! pic.twitter.com/65qvfn4N86
— Charlotte Checkers (@CheckersHockey) February 19, 2022
QUOTES
Coach Geordie Kinnear on the startI didn’t like the way we started. It was sloppy, bad changes. It just wasn’t sharp. I give Cleveland a lot of credit because I thought they came with a lot of purpose to their game and I thought we had a sloppy start. That starts with me and moves down to the players, but it was definitely a sloppy start.
Kinnear on the team picking up its game
You’ve got good leadership in there, and I asked the guys to start building their game and finding it. You have to learn that sometimes you’re not going to be on top of your game and you have to be able to work your way through it. I was proud of the guys. I thought the second period we started working through it and in the third period we stuck with it.
Kinnear on Spencer Knight
We don’t want to always rely on our goaltender. The penalty kill made some big mistakes and gave them two, and that’s not normally us. We’ve got to clean that up and be better because we want to play well and not just rely on our goaltender.
Logan Hutsko on the game
We didn’t start as hard as we’d like to but we found a way to get it done. Good teams find a way to win and we did that tonight.
Hutsko on getting on the score sheet
I try not to focus on the outcomes and try to focus on whether I’m playing well or not. The points will come and go. Sometimes you have nights like tonight and sometimes you play well and have none.
