QUICK HITS
TIGHT RACE
The Checkers find themselves in the thick of the tightest divisional race in the league. The Atlantic is the only division in which every team is above .500, and only three points separate the third-place Checkers and the cellar-dwelling eighth place team.HEADING NORTH
Including their recent two-game set against the Monsters this past weekend, the Checkers are in the midst of nine consecutive games against opponents from the North Division. This presents a big opportunity for Charlotte - which is 5-4-1-0 this season against North Division teams - to collect points outside of the increasingly tight Atlantic.ALL-STAR PERFORMANCE
Riley Nash has continued to light up the score sheet and exemplify why he was named to the AHL All-Star Classic. The veteran forward matched a career high with four points in Saturday’s win over Cleveland, then potted another goal the next night to move his hot streak to 27 points in his last 27 games.Thus far this season Nash has factored into 30% of Charlotte’s goals.
AGAINST THE COMETS
Tonight marks the third of four times that the Checkers and Comets will square off this season. Each of the first two meetings took overtime to decide, with Charlotte earning the win the first night and Utica taking the victory the second night.KILLING IT
This past weekend the Checkers held the Monsters’ power play in check over two penalty-filled contests, killing all nine times they were shorthanded. With that strong showing, the Checkers have now successfully killed 34 of their last 36 penalties over the last eight games - pushing themselves up to the number two spot in the AHL.They’ll go toe-to-toe tonight with a Utica power play that checks in in the bottom half of the league rankings.
QUOTES
Checkers Head Coach Geordie Kinnear after Sunday's loss on his team's focus moving forward"Keep building. I liked four periods for sure and then two periods we want to correct like the special teams there in the second period, but we’re building as a group. A lot of young players still and guys getting back in the lineup. We’ll just keep building. All is good."
Checkers Alternate Captain Riley Nash after Sunday's loss on what lessons the team can take moving into this road trip
"Hockey is a funny game. You can try to out-skill a team and you can try and play as fancy at you want, but the end of the day it’s kind of like football – it’s won in the trenches. You’ve got to put the work in and you’ve got to do the dirty stuff."
Kinnear after Saturday's 9-0 win on kickstarting the offense
"Obviously we haven’t scored a lot of goals this year. There’s been a lot of one-goal games, but we had four lines going. We had discipline, we weren’t in the box a lot tonight and we want to continue to move forward with having that disciplined hockey and scoring goals the right way."
COMING IN
CLT: 2-2-0-1 in last five gamesUTI: 3-2-0-0 in last five games
WHO TO WATCH
CLT
Riley Nash - 7 points in last 4 gamesLucas Carlsson - 5 points in last 4 games
Aleksi Heponiemi - 9 points in last 7 games
UTI
Graeme Clarke - 5 points in last 7 gamesNolan Stevens - 3 points in last 4 games
Andreas Johnsson - 6 points in last 8 games
TUNE IN
Tonight's game starts at 7 p.m. You can tune in to the broadcast with a subscription to the league’s streaming platform AHLTV (home 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!
