QUICK HITS
PLAYOFF PICTURE
As the regular season winds down, the Atlantic Division playoff race continues to tighten. The Checkers remain in the third spot and trail the second-place Bears by five points and the division-leading Bruins by eight. On Charlotte’s heels are the Thunderbirds and Phantoms, who both sit four points behind the Checkers.The Checkers have an opportunity for four points this weekend in Toronto, while Hershey visits Lehigh Valley on Friday and then hosts Rochester on Saturday.
HEADED NORTH
This weekend will mark the third and fourth matchups between the Checkers and Marlies this season. The first two took place in Charlotte in early February, with the Checkers winning 4-3 in overtime in the first meeting before falling 4-3 in the next night’s rematch.This weekend also marks Charlotte’s first visit to Toronto since Feb. 2020.
GOALIE SHUFFLE
The goalie pipeline got a bit of a shakeup ahead of this weekend’s series. With J-F Berube being handed a three-game suspension, the Checkers recalled Evan Fitzpatrick from their ECHL affiliate in Florida. The 2016 second-round pick hasn’t suited up for Charlotte this season, but has been putting together a strong campaign with the Everblades thus far, and has 12 games of experience at the AHL level over his career. The other half of Charlotte’s tandem will be Alex Lyon, who was assigned to the Checkers yesterday as the Panthers recalled Mack Guzda to serve as Sergei Bobrovsky’s backup. Lyon has been with Florida for much of the last month, though his last action in any crease was his most recent start for Charlotte on Feb. 18. The veteran netminder will be looking to replicate his success with the Checkers, as he holds a 5-2-0 record over his last seven starts in a Charlotte sweater.SPECIAL TEAMS SUCCESS
The Checkers have seen both sides of their special teams play clicking over the most recent stretch of games. On the offensive side, they have scored a power-play goal in seven of their last eight and are operating at a 23.3 percent success rate over that run. On the other side, the Checkers have held their opponents without a power-play goal in five of their last six games - killing off 17 of their last 19 times shorthanded.QUOTES
Head Coach Geordie Kinnear on bouncing back from Saturday's shootout loss"We need to learn from that mistake and have a better start after being successful the night before. It’s about having a short memory."
Kinnear on fine-tuning his team's approach
"We want to play our game to the best of our ability and outwork the opponent."
Kinnear on not dwelling on recent road success
"We’re not looking back. We have a really good team to play Friday."
Kinnear on keeping his team positive through an up-and-down week
"We want to make sure that we start on time and then we can build. There’s always going to be highs and lows, you want to make sure you can get out of the lows and get to the high level."
COMING IN
CLT: 2-2-0-1 in last five gamesTOR: 3-2-0-0 in last five games
WHO TO WATCH
CLT
Grigori Denisenko - 3 points in last 2 gamesGerry Mayhew - 6 points in last 4 games
Zac Dalpe - 4 points in last 2 games
TOR
Logan Shaw - 4 points in last 2 gamesPntus Holmberg - 7 points in last 6 games
Bobby McMann - 10 goals in last 7 games
TUNE IN
Today's game starts at 1:30 p.m. You can tune in to the broadcast with a subscription to the league’s streaming platform AHLTV(home team broadcast only).The radio broadcast will be available via the Checkers app on iPhone or Android.
Additionally, our friends over at Ed's Tavern on 2200 Park Road are going to be showing the game on their TVs!
