Game Preview: Checkers at Abbotsford (Feb. 4, 2014)

The Checkers resume their road trip tonight by facing the West Division rival Abbotsford Heat for the first time this season.

Starting with the first of back-to-back games in Abbotsford, the Checkers and Heat will knock out their four-game season series in less than two weeks, with the Heat heading to Raleigh for two games at PNC Arena on Feb. 14 and 16. Following tonight's game, Charlotte will have played every team on its schedule at least once.

After 10 p.m. starts tonight and Wednesday, the Checkers make a quick return home for their annual Pink in the Rink event vs. the Oklahoma City Barons on Friday.

Charlotte

A certainty heading into the Abbotsford series is that the Checkers will have a different goaltender, or goaltenders, than the one they used to begin their road trip in Lake Erie over the weekend. Cam Ward, in net for the 1-0 loss and 5-3 win against the Monsters, has completed his conditioning stint and returned to the NHL with Carolina.

That leaves John Muse and Mike Murphy, who took turns backing up Ward over the weekend, to play against the Heat. Muse has received the bulk of the workload in recent weeks, making each of the team's last four starts prior to that. He has won 12 of his last 14 starts dating back to Nov. 30, including each of his five, but may not play both games this weekend with the team scheduled to play three times in four days with a tough travel day in between.

While the shutout loss to Lake Erie on Friday, the first time the Checkers have not found the back of the net this season, ended several point streaks, the team responded in Saturday's win. Two of Zach Boychuk's three career hat tricks have come in his last three games, ending a three-year wait. With eight points in his last four games, he is one of five Checkers skaters averaging a point-per-game or more during that time period despite the shutout (Chris Terry has seven, Brett Sutter has five and Greg Nemisz and Aaron Palushaj each have four).

That offensive production is a key reason why the Checkers have won eight of their last 10 games, making them one of the hottest teams in the league. Of their 22 wins this season, 20 have come when scoring three or more goals.

Tonight's game will mark a homecoming for Nemisz, who played three full seaons and the start of this season with Abbotsford until the Carolina Hurricanes acquired him in exchange for Kevin Westgarth on Dec. 30. With nine points in eight games as a Checker, Nemisz has equaled his point total from 32 games with the Heat to start this season. A first-round draft pick (25th overall) by the parent Calgary Flames in 2008, Nemisz played a total of 206 games for Abbotsford.

Barring any surprise injury that may have surfaced since the team's last game, the Checkers will again have two healthy extras. At forward, Brendan Woods and Matthew Pistilli took turns sitting out in Lake Erie, while Keegan Lowe has missed all three games since the Hurricanes assigned Ryan Murphy to Charlotte.

Abbotsford

After starting their eight-game home stand with a pair of overtime losses to last-place Utica, the Heat went on to crush Hamilton with wins of 6-0 and 4-1 last weekend. That gives them a five-game point streak to enter tonight's game (3-0-2) and puts them just one point behind Texas for the West Division lead with a chance to overtake the Stars tonight.

The Heat, who rank ninth in the AHL with an average of 3.04 goals per game, have scored by committee with eight players that have crossed the 25-point mark (by comparison, the Checkers have three in Palushaj, Boychuk and Terry). Second-year pro Max Reinhart leads that group with 35 points (10g, 25) in 39 games, with Markus Granlund, Ben Street, Chad Billins, Corban Knight, Corey Locke and Ben Hanowski following close behind.

Among AHL defensemen, Billins ranks fifth in points (32) and third in power-play points (17) while Granlund and Knight are among the league's top rookie scorers. The Checkers have already faced Locke four times this season when the former AHL MVP was still playing with Chicago prior to his trade to the Heat.

Street will be playing his first AHL game since Jan. 11, having just arrived from Calgary on Monday. Also on Monday, the Flames recalled goaltender Joni Ortio, who ranks in the AHL's top four in wins (19), goals-against average (2.08) and save percentage (.930).

Forward Blair Jones (23 points in 18 AHL games) and defenseman Shane O'Brien (528 NHL games) have recently come down from Calgary. Trevor Gillies, an enforcer who spent two seasons playing for the Hurricanes' AHL affiliate in Albany, has played one game with Abbotsford since signing with the Heat last week.

While a penalty kill in the league's bottom six could be viewed as a weakness, the Heat are actually the AHL's best on home ice in that department with an 89.9 percent conversion rate.

Checkers Notes

Hats off to Boychuk

Checkers forward Zach Boychuk scored three goals against Lake Erie on Feb. 1 to record his second hat trick in his last three games. Prior to his first hat trick of the season against Oklahoma City on Jan. 24, Boychuk had one other AHL hat trick that came almost exactly three years earlier at Wilkes-Barre/Scranton on Jan. 23, 2011.

Boychuk, who recorded his 100th career AHL goal with the first of his three on Feb. 1, needed just three shots to score his latest hat trick. He now owns three of the five hat tricks recorded in the Checkers' AHL history (Jacob Micflikier, Brett Sutter).

Boychuk leads the Checkers and ranks tied for fourth in the AHL with 21 goals, marking his fourth consecutive season with 20 or more. After just 36 games played, he is only two goals shy of tying his career high set in 49 games last season. He is tied for the AHL lead with 12 power-play goals, which also ties the Checkers' franchise record for most in a single season.

In the Groove

The Checkers are 8-2-0 since Jan. 3, tying them with three other AHL teams (Hershey, Rochester at St. John's) for most wins in their last 10 games.

Since going through a franchise-record, seven-game losing streak in November, the Checkers are 17-10-0 and currently sit just three points out of a playoff spot with five games in hand over eighth-place Rockford.

Goalies Galore

Cam Ward, who played two games with Charlotte while on a conditioning stint from the Carolina Hurricanes last weekend, became the ninth goalie to play for the Checkers this season. That total is the most by an AHL team since Adirondack used 10 in the 2009-10 season and extends a single-season franchise record that previously stood at five. Goalies that have played for the Checkers this season are, in order of appearance: Justin Peters, Mike Murphy, Jesse Deckert, John Muse, Allen York, Rick DiPietro, Rob Madore, Anton Khudobin and Ward.

All three goaltenders on Carolina's current roster (Khudobin, Peters and Ward) have played for Charlotte this season.

Floodgates Open

Defenseman Mark Flood scored his 10th goal of the season against Lake Erie on Saturday, giving him sole possession of second-most among AHL defensemen. Six of his goals have come on the power play, tying him for third among league blueliners in that category.

In just 43 games, Flood, a 29-year-old veteran who scored just one goal in 52 games in the Russian KHL last season, has already tied Bobby Sanguinetti (2011-12) for the most goals scored by a Checkers defenseman in a single season. The veteran of 501 professional games is just one away from his AHL career high of 11 set with Manitoba during the 2010-11 campaign.

Palushaj Picks up the Pace

One game after seeing his season-high, seven-game point streak come to an end in Friday's 1-0 shutout at Lake Erie, Aaron Palushaj scored the game-winning goal on Saturday to give him points in 17 of his last 20 AHL games since Dec. 10 (10g, 16a). It was his fifth game-winning goal of the season, tying him for second most in the AHL.

In his first season with the Checkers, Palushaj leads the team with 40 points (t-11th AHL) and 24 assists and ranks second with 16 goals. Despite making two separate single-game trips to Carolina this season, he is one of four Checkers skaters to play in all 43 games (Mark Flood, Victor Rask, Justin Shugg). He suited up for his 300th professional game against Lake Erie on Jan. 31.

Fitting In

Since the Carolina Hurricanes acquired him from Calgary in a Dec. 30 trade and assigned him to Charlotte, forward Greg Nemisz has nine points (3g, 6a) and a plus-5 rating in eight games as a Checker. That includes at least one point in all but one of his games, a 1-0 shutout in Lake Erie on Friday, and equals his total from 32 games with Abbotsford prior to the trade.

Nemisz, a 2008 first-round draft pick who scored 248 points (115g, 133a) in 246 career junior hockey games with the Windsor Spitfires, had just 19 points in his previous 87 AHL games over the last two seasons with Abbotsford.

Extreme Special Teams

Since tying a franchise record with five power-play goals on seven chances against the Oklahoma City Barons on Jan. 24, the Checkers went a combined 0-for-10 on the man advantage in back-to-back games against Lake Erie over the weekend. They went 0-for-6 in Friday's game, tying earlier games on Jan. 18 and 23 for the most opportunities the Checkers have received in a single game without scoring a power-play goal this season.

On the other side of the equation, the Checkers went a perfect 11-for-11 on the penalty kill against Lake Erie, with an 8-for-8 peformance on Friday marking the most opportunities allowed without surrendering a power-play goal in team history. The Checkers had not given up eight power plays in a single game since killing seven of eight at Peoria on Feb. 11, 2012. It was also the first time that Charlotte had negated eight power plays in a single game since going 8-for-10 at Houston on Oct. 30, 2011.

All He Does Is Win

Checkers goalie John Muse has won each of his last five decisions, putting him just one short of his season high set from Nov. 30-Dec. 19 that tied the franchise record held by teammate Mike Murphy. Starting with his earlier streak, Muse has won 12 of his last 14 games to improve to 16-8-0 this season, while the other eight goalies the team has used are a combined 6-12-1.

Since rejoining the Checkers on a professional tryout contract on Oct. 23 (he later signed an AHL contract), Muse has a 2.39 goals-against average, .922 save percentage and three shutouts, including a 31-save performance against Oklahoma City on Jan. 23. A winner of two NCAA National Championships with Boston College and an ECHL Kelly Cup with the Florida Everblades, he has an all-time AHL record of 34-18-3 and is tied with Justin Peters for second in Checkers history with 33 wins. The team record of 42 is held by Murphy.

Against the Heat

In eight all-time meetings since the Checkers joined the Western Conference prior to the 2011-12 season, Charlotte has a record of 4-4-0 against the Heat, including a 3-1-0 record in Abbotsford.

Dating back to last season, when the Checkers went 3-1-0 against Abbotsford, the Checkers have won three consecutive games against the Heat. That includes wins of 5-1 and 1-0 in the last two, both of which took place in Abbotsford on Feb. 22 and 23.

Quick Hits

• The Checkers are 10-3-0 against fellow West Division opponents this season, making it the only division they have a winning record against. Each of their next six games will be against divisional opponents.
• Ryan Murphy has four assists in three games since joining the Checkers on Jan. 24, giving him six points, all assists, in six career AHL regular-season games.
• Charlotte's 1-0 loss to Lake Erie on Friday marked the first time the team has been shut out since a 3-0 loss to Milwaukee on April 6 of last season. The Checkers, who were coming off a season-high, nine-goal performance in their previous game, had managed one goal on nine previous occasions this season.
• The Checkers have won 10 of their last 12 one-goal games.
• Charlotte's current four-game road trip is its longest since playing six consecutive games on the road from Oct. 25-Nov. 2. Charlotte's 18 road games played are the fewest in the AHL.
• The Checkers have scored three or more goals in 11 of their last 14 games. They are 20-6-0 when scoring three or more and 2-14-1 when scoring fewer than three.
• In terms of winning percentage, February is historically the Checkers' best month with an all-time record of 19-8-5, including 1-0-0 this season.
• Charlotte's four overtime games and two shootouts are the fewest in the league.
• The first period is the only period in which the Checkers have a positive goal differential (42 for, 38 against).

Player Streaks

• None

Milestones

• Ryan Murphy is one game shy of 50 professional games
• A.J. Jenks is two games shy of 150 AHL games
• Zach Boychuk scored his 100th AHL goal against Lake Erie on Feb. 1
• Mark Flood played his 500th professional game against Lake Erie on Jan. 31
• Aaron Palushaj played his 300th professional game against Lake Erie on Jan. 31
• Brody Sutter played his 100th professional game against Lake Erie on Jan. 31

Injuries

• Jared Staal - missed 10 games starting Jan. 3
• Nicolas Blanchard - missed seven games starting Jan. 17

Transactions

Incoming

• Jan. 29 - (RW) Aaron Palushaj reassigned to Charlotte from Carolina (NHL)

Outgoing

• Feb. 2 - (G) Cam Ward recalled to Carolina (NHL) from Charlotte