The Wild, who entered the game on an 11-game winless streak, came out firing on the lethargic Checkers, racking up a 3-0 advantage after 20 minutes. Brock McGinn put the home team on the board in the second, but was cancelled out by a late power-play tally from former Checkers captain Brett Sutter, sending Charlotte into the locker room down 4-1.
But it didn’t take long for the Checkers to get going in the third. Zach Boychuk buried one just 61 seconds into the frame and the dam burst. Brody Sutter, McGinn and Danny Biega all followed suit, each lighting the lamp within the first seven minutes of the third to overtake Iowa 5-4. The offense continued to roll for Charlotte, with two more goals by Justin Shugg and Keegan Lowe coming in the frame to secure the Checkers’ tremendous comeback with a 7-4 final.
“I told the guys, I said - listen,” said Morris. “We came back from 4-1 against these guys in the past (on Oct. 11) so I’m not counting us out. To our credit, I think our guys found the will to get back in the game and we got them back on their heels and didn’t look back after that.
“The first two thirds of the game wasn’t anything to write home about. The third period - those are the ones that’ll make memories forever.”
According to his players, Morris’ intermission speeches weren’t the fire-and-brimstone rallies one might have expected.
“Mo knows our potential and our capabilities,” said captain Derek Ryan. “He didn’t come in and yell at us, but he got the message through. We were able to turn it around and hopefully we can settle our consistency issues right away.”
One of the biggest issues the Checkers have faced this season has been their slow starts. Falling behind early in this game could have caused the team to spiral even further, but there was a belief in the locker room that they could come back.
“That’s a big part of the leadership group,” said Ryan. “We have a good group in there that we can make sure the young guys are staying plugged in and believing we can come back. We’ve come back from three-goal deficits twice against these guys now, so there’s a lot of faith in that locker room, but at the same time it’s a big part of our leadership group to make sure guys are ready to go in situations like that. Adversity, I always say, is a character-revealing moment.
“I think that¹s big for young guys to realize. You don’t want to be known as a quitter. You want to make sure you’re playing the best you can every time you go on the ice. If it means you’re down 4-1, you’ve got to believe you can come back, and obviously we can.”
Morris has pointed to the need for the team’s top scoring threats to get going for the team to succeed, and as of late he has gotten his wish. After a slow start, Boychuk now has six points in his last four games, while McGinn has four goals in his last three games.
“It’s healthy to have those guys playing and feeling good about themselves,” said Morris. “The encouraging thing is that we’re moving in the right direction heading into tomorrow afternoon (a rematch with Iowa at 1 p.m.). I think that those guys have got to be feeling good about being on the score sheet.”
It also helps take some weight off of Ryan, who has been the team’s most consistent scorer and now leads the team in points thanks to a trio of helpers tonight.
“That’s huge to have consistent scoring from our top two lines,” said Ryan. “Hopefully we can get that every game and that’s something we’re looking for to be consistent night-in and night-out.”
The Checkers face a quick turnaround, again squaring off with Iowa tomorrow afternoon. With a six-goal third period fresh on their minds, the hope is that the team won’t be plagued by the same sluggish start they had tonight.
“We’ve got to keep the momentum going,” said Boychuk. “We tend to have a fairly good first game and win and then the second game is a little bit of a struggle. We need to change that. We need to come out harder tomorrow and hopefully we can get some bounces early and work for a good game.”
“Anytime you score six goals in a period you can take a lot from that,” said Ryan. “You can pretty much come back from any deficit. I think that’s huge moving forward as a fairly young team to realize that we can come back in games. We can take a lot in knowing how differently we played in the first period than the third period. You can see the results.”
