Nicolas Roy broke the deadlock midway through the first period and opened the flood gates for Charlotte, who would notch another pair shortly after to build a sturdy 3-0 advantage through 20 minutes of play.
The Checkers’ offensive roll didn’t slow down from there. Andrew Poturalski found the back of the net less than a minute into the second, then Dennis Robertson launched a one-timer through traffic and in to push the Charlotte lead to 5-0. The Phantoms finally found a way past rookie netminder Callum Booth, who finished the night with 30 saves, but that would be all they could muster.
Poturalski opened the final frame with his second power-play marker of the night and the Checkers would ride out the rest of regulation on their way to a lopsided victory.
QUOTES
Coach Mike Vellucci on the difference between tonight and last night’s 3-1 win against Lehigh Valley
The puck was going in. I thought we probably played a better game last night but just weren’t scoring. Tonight we got the bounces.
Vellucci on Andrew Poturalski’s scoring surge
It’s more his effort defensively and being committed to his overall game. When you do that, good things will come offensively. I like the way he’s played in the D zone and his commitment to tracking and backchecking. That’s just the result of hard play.
Vellucci on Callum Booth’s first AHL win
It was great, but he made the saves early on and up until late too. They got a lot of chances. I was really happy for him. He’s a good goalie and it’s tough for young guys to break into pro hockey. He’s doing a great job in Florida and he’s doing well when he’s up top.
Vellucci on carrying momentum forward
We want to clinch a spot and we want to get as high as we can in the standings. We’ll just keep rolling and playing the game the right way.
Trevor Carrick on the two games against Lehigh Valley
I thought we played good yesterday so we just kind of built off that. We could have had a few more goals yesterday too, and tonight they were obviously going in for us. We only kept them to one, so that was nice too.
Carrick on the team getting six goals
Especially with the lineup we have, because we’re missing three or four of top players right now. A lot of guys have been stepping up. Everyone in the lineup from front to back, and Boother had a hell of a game tonight. A lot of guys are getting opportunities that they haven’t had and they’re taking full advantage of it. Everyone on our team is hungry right now and it’s paying off for us.
Carrick on the final push for the playoffs
We’ve just got to keep playing the way we have been. We’ve got a lot of confidence in our room right now. We know Bridgeport was on our heels a little bit and we still know that they can catch us, but we’ve just got to worry about us, keep winning games, try to climb up that ladder and have a good finish to the season going into playoffs hopefully.
Nicolas Roy on playing without four of the team’s top six scorers
Those guys are huge for us, but when they’re not playing the other guys need to work twice as hard. I think we’ve been able to do that these last couple of games, so that’s been good.
Roy on the sweep of Lehigh Valley
We were ready for both of those games, so we feel good and we need to keep pushing toward the playoffs.
