ON THE ROAD AGAIN
After taking the first two games of the series on home ice, the Checkers now hit the road as the Division Finals shift over to Hershey.The Bears thrived on their home ice this season, logging a 25-10-3 record at the Giant Center – tying them for the third-most home wins in the AHL. They also bested the Checkers in their two meetings in Hershey this season via a 3-2 shootout win and a 2-1 regulation win.
“It’s a building that’s always sold out, there’s probably going to be over 10,000 people there,” said Checkers head coach Mike Vellucci. “It’s a tough building to play in but if we can survive the first five minutes there and maybe get a quick goal to get them off their game, that would be a key for us.”
The good news for the Checkers is that they were the best road team in the league this season, posting a 25-10-3 mark away from home.
OFFENSIVE SPARKS
Heading into the series, Hershey boasted a formidable defensive front, surrendering just nine goals over their five-game defeat of Bridgeport and placing both of their netminders in the AHL’s top three in terms of goals-against average.The Checkers were unfazed through the first two games, however, racking up eleven goals in two decisive wins.
“We’re a goal-scoring team,” said Vellucci. “We’ve gotten some really good individual efforts out of [Julien] Gauthier and [Tomas] Jurco, we just need to continue to work hard and get to the front of the net, that’s where we scored all of our goals.”
That’s not to say Charlotte has been a one-dimensional squad thus far, which is something that the coaching staff continues to preach.
“We don’t give up much,” said Vellucci. “We have to continue to play better in our end so we don’t have to spend much time there and we can score even more.”
SECOND LINE SOARS
The Checkers shuffled their forward lines a bit for Game 2 and ended up creating a huge spark on the second line. Nicolas Roy moved to the middle of Martin Necas and Tomas Jurco and the trio proceeded to factor in to five of the team’s seven tallies on the night.“He holds onto pucks a little more and he’s really good down low and he’s a net-front presence,” said Vellucci of Roy. “He’s kind of like [Patrick] Brown, when he was on that line he created a lot of opportunities by playing so hard down low. Nic did that for those guys in Game 2. I think there’s a lot of chemistry there, the guys like each other. They haven’t played a lot together but I talked to Jurcs and Martin and they both felt comfortable with Nic there.”
GOING DEEP
After their top line provided much of the production in the first round, the Checkers were looking for added depth scoring in their series with Hershey. With the second line’s outburst, they got just that.“I said it after the first round, every round is different,” said Vellucci. “You never know if one line is going to dominate one round and then another in the second round. We always knew we needed points out of Marty and Jurcs, they got a couple on the power play and then they just kept going from there.”
They weren’t the only ones clicking, however, as the Checkers used contributions rom aacross the lineup to light up the Bears through the first two games of the series, something that was especially helpful as leading scorer Andrew Poturalski sat on the sideline due to injury.
“Scoring depth is great, especially our fourth line with Lory [Steven Lorentz] and Nasty [Zach Nastasiuk] and even Stelly [Stelio Mattheos] getting a goal,” said Vellucci. “If you can win your matchups and get scoring from your fourth line, that’s pretty big.”
INJURY UPDATES
The Checkers lost a key piece down the middle in Game 2 when Clark Bishop went hard into the boards. There’s good news heading into Game 3 however.“He’s fine, no issues with him,” said Vellucci. “He should be in the lineup Tuesday.”
There’s still a big question mark up front for Charlotte though, as leading scorer Poturalski’s status for Game 3 is unknown.
“He’s still day-to-day but he’s getting better,” said Vellucci. “We’ll have to see.”
SWEDISH REINFORCEMENT
While the Charlotte blue line will be without Dennis Robertson, who was suspended for one game as a result of a hit the head in Game 2, the Checkers received another defensive piece to plug in.Selected by Carolina in the 2018 draft, Jesper Sellgren inked a PTO with the Checkers at the conclusion of his SHL season with Lulea and could be seeing game action sooner rather than later.
“He’s a great defenseman and he’s a very very good skater,” said Vellucci of the 20-year-old. “He played in the elite division over in Sweden where he was a puck-moving defenseman. We’re really excited to have him and we’re lucky we were able to get him over here now. The plan is to wait and see if we need him. He just got here on Sunday. We’ll go over some systems with him but he’ll be in either Tuesday or Wednesday.”
