Game Preview: Checkers at Hartford (Dec. 7, 2018)

The Checkers are back on the road this weekend for a pair of divisional matchups starting Friday in Hartford. Here are seven things to know before puck drops.

1. AVENGERS

When they square off against the Wolf Pack Friday the Checkers will have the chance to avenge a tough loss from their first meeting a week ago. After emerging from a wild first period with a 3-2 lead, the Checkers would ultimately fall to Hartford by a score of 5-3.

“Defensively we weren’t too good,” said head coach Mike Vellucci of the first meeting. “We gave them too many chances. It was just one of those games. We need to make sure this time that our special teams get going early.”

The Checkers will catch one break Friday, as the Wolf Pack will be without the recently recalled Matt Beleskey, who led the way with three helpers in the first matchup. Veteran Dustin Tokarski, who stymied the Checkers with 30 saves, has started four of Hartford’s last five contests and picked up the win each time.

2. SURGING PACK

Despite slotting in at sixth place in the Atlantic Division, Hartford has been on an upswing as of late. The Wolf Pack boast a 6-3-1 record over their last 10 games, an identical mark to the Checkers, and have won four of their last five contests, although their most recent outing saw them drop a tight 2-1 game to Bridgeport. The Wolf Pack have also been a much stronger team on home ice, logging a 7-4-1 record at XL Center.

3. DARLING COMES ABOARD

Charlotte’s goalie situation was shaken up a bit last week as veteran netminder Scott Darling cleared waivers and was assigned to the Checkers to form a tandem with Alex Nedeljkovic. The move had further reverberations, as second-year pro Callum Booth was sent to the ECHL’s Reading Royals to continue to get playing time, but the coaching staff has been hard at work making the situation work for all parties.

“Everyone has to face adversity at some time in their career,” said Vellucci. “Whether it’s Scott right now or Ned because he’s going to share the net a bit more or Boother getting sent to the coast, he was having a really good year for us, everyone has adversity. It’s about how you respond to it. I talked to all three guys about how we’re going to deal with it together. We’re a group and we’re all going to get better by talking about it and making sure everyone is alright.”

Darling, who has been strong in his three appearances for Charlotte this season, has been a welcome addition to the team and will likely take center stage this weekend as Nedeljkovic heads to the Canes to fill in for an injured Curtis McElhinney.

“Scott is obviously a big boost to us, we’re excited to have him,” said Vellucci. “One thing I like about him so far is that he gets along with the group really well and he’s fit in great. Everybody likes him, he’s good to the trainers and the players, it’s been a smooth transition.”

4. PENALTY PROBLEMS

Though they have been trending in the right direction as of late, the Checkers still check in as the fourth-most penalized team in the AHL and have taken the second-most minor penalties in the league. That came back to bite them over last weekend’s road trip, with both losses coming via game-winning goals surrendered on the power play.

“It’s the silly penalties that are hurting us,” said Vellucci. “It’s the offensive zone penalties, the hookings because you’re not skating. If you’re hooking it means you’re not above them which means you’re not skating. We’ve talked about those a lot and showed them video of the bad penalties that we can’t take. Hopefully we learn from it.”

This weekend they’ll face a Hartford team whose power play ranks in the middle of the pack and a Springfield team that boasts the third-best percentage in the league.

5. SHOOT YOUR SHOT

The Checkers rank 18th in the AHL in terms of shots-per-game, but last weekend saw them ramp up that production until they unleashed a season-high 47 on Sunday, a come-from-behind victory over Providence. It wasn’t the sheer number of shots on goal that impressed the coaching staff, however.

“I’m not big into shot volume, I want quality chances,” said Vellucci. “When we get those I don’t want you to pass it up and try for a backdoor pass, let’s get the shot on net. The quality is most important. In the first couple of games we overpassed. We get three-on-ones, three-on-twos and we want to make all those pretty goals. That could be my fault, we do a lot of flow drills with line rushes, I need to be more hard on them to get shots on net. I try to let them be skill players but sometimes you just need to bear down and put it on net.”

6. EMPTYING THE TANK

After dropping the first two legs of a three-in-three stretch last weekend, the Checkers were in a tough spot heading back to Providence for the finale. But instead to going 0-for-the weekend, the Checkers were able to dig deep and pull out an impressive win to cap things off and push momentum back in their favor.

“Down 2-0 with 10 minutes left and we come back to win the game in overtime, that’s a huge win,” said Vellucci of the Sunday contest in Providence. “Especially when you play three games in two and a half days with the travel. What I loved about it the most was not just that we won, but I went in that locker room after and nobody had even taken their stuff off, they were exhausted. It was almost too hard to celebrate. They emptied the tank for me. I can only ask them to work as hard as they can every game and they definitely did that.”

Following a grueling stretch like that, the coaching staff did what they could this week to make sure their team was as refreshed as possible heading into another road trip.

“We gave them two days off, which isn’t really two days because one is a travel day so you’re exhausted anyway,” said Vellucci. But they had Tuesday off and then we had two really good practices so now we’ll carry that over into the weekend.”

7. TUNE IN

You can tune in to this weekend's broadcasts with a subscription to the league’s new streaming platform AHLTV. Sign up here and catch the action on the road.

As always, the radio broadcast will be available via the Checkers app or this link, so tune in and tweet Jason Shaya to let him know you’re listening!