The Wolves jumped out to an early lead thanks to Shane Harper, who extended his point streak to eight games, tying him for the longest active streak in the AHL. Both teams traded chances for the remainder of the period and the Wolves carried a one-goal lead into the first intermission.
The wheels came off in the second, as the Checkers surrendered three consecutive goals to fall into a 4-0 hole. The last strike, which saw Terry Broadhurst carry the puck out of the corner and thread it on the far side of the net, ended Drew MacIntyre’s night, with John Muse coming in for relief inside the final five minutes of the frame. The Wolves tested a cold Muse with several chances right off the bat, but he stood tall and kept the deficit at four heading into the final period.
Tonight’s result marked the third-straight loss for the Checkers since the All-Star break, a three-game stretch in which opponents have out-scored them by a cumulative 13-3 margin. During this week of practice, the team stressed the importance of coming into this game and putting the work in that has been absent of late but failed to follow through.
“Tonight we just got out-worked,” said Sutter. “They out-competed us and that’s happened on far too many nights this year. That¹s why we’re at where we are right now in the standings.”
“It’s not going our way right now,” said captain Michal Jordan. “We’re not scoring many goals and we’re not winning many games so it sucks right now.”
The Checkers controlled the play for several long stretches of the game and registered 40 shots on goal, tying their second-highest total this season. But although the number of chances were there, the Checkers never seemed to truly threaten Binnington until it was too late.
“Shots can be deceiving and I didn’t think there were a lot of quality shots that we had,” said head coach Jeff Daniels. “Yeah we put up 40 shots, but it¹s about quality and I don’t think we had enough quality to win the game.”
As the Checkers find themselves mired in their worst stretch of the season in terms of goal differential, the frustration of a tough season has started to enter the locker room.
“Probably as high as I’ve seen it in the three years I’ve been here, especially since the All-Star break,” said Sutter regarding the level of frustration among the players. “In three games we’ve been flat all three and there¹s no excuse for that. Right now guys are frustrated and we’ve got to find an answer.”
The key with that frustration is in turning it into fire to fuel the team to snap out of it, as opposed to letting it spiral out of control.
“The biggest thing is just trying to stay positive,” said Sutter. “We’ve heard all year we have a young team but (MacIntyre) spoke earlier in the year about how that’s a bad excuse. Everyone’s in this league for a reason, they can play in this league and they’re good enough players to. You have to out-work teams every night, and in this league if you don¹t do that you’re not going to be successful.”
Following the game, Daniels spoke of the team needing to increase its intensity and urgency as the season starts to wind down.
“For me it’s got to come from within,” said Daniels. “They’re pro players and this is what they want to do for a living. They’ve got to play with pride and bring it every single night. We’ll talk about different things, but you’ve got to motivate yourself sometimes and say, ‘Listen, if I want to get to the next level I’ve got to be better.’”
The team will now turn its sights towards a rematch tomorrow night with this same Wolves team.
“We have to battle out as a group and older guys have got to step up and make sure we’re going to be ready, finish strong the rest of our season and hopefully start winning a couple of games and start pushing for that playoff spot,” said Jordan.
