The Charlotte Checkers opened the 2023-24 AHL season by splitting a pair of games against the visiting Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins at Bojangles Coliseum over the weekend.
In Friday’s opener, Spencer Knight got the call as the Checkers dropped a 4-2 decision to the Penguins. Seeing his first meaningful action since February 18, Knight finished with 25 saves on 27 shots faced.
The game was scoreless until Wilkes-Barre/Scranton’s Austin Rueschhoff struck unassisted at 1:52 of the third period.
Jonathan Gruden doubled the Penguins advantage with the lone assist going to Corey Andonovski 1:25 later.
Will Lockwood, who was recalled by the Florida Panthers last night, got Charlotte’s first goal of the campaign 14 seconds after Gruden’s marker to halve the deficit. Defenseman Santtu Kinnunen drew the only assist.
The Penguins wrapped things up with empty net goals from Xavier Ouellet and Dmitri Samorukov before Ryan McAllister completed the scoring with eight seconds left in the game.
Former NHLers Rem Pitlick and Vinnie Hinostroza got the assists on Samorukov’s goal while Kinnunen and Jake Wise collected the helpers on McAllister’s.
Magnus Hellberg was the winning goalie, finish with 28 saves.
The Checkers got its first win on Saturday, by a 4-1 count, on the strength of two goals from Patrick Khodorenko.
Rasmus Asplund would open the scoring 7:38 into second by cutting across the ice and beating Joel Blomqvist, with the assists going to Lockwood and Casey Fitzgerald.
Khodorenko, who did not play in the opener, notched his first as a Checker with 1:04 left in frame when he converted Kinnunen’s pass into the low slot. The second assist went to captain Zac Dalpe.
Lockwood would bag his second of the season 10:16 into the third with Charlotte on a power play by potting a rebound with his club applying enormous pressure. The assists would be credited to Gerry Mayhew and Kinnunen. That’s four assists for Kinnunen!
Former Panther Colin White would crack Mack Guzda’s goose egg, from Ty Smith and Hinostroza, with Blomqvist off for an extra attacker and Lockwood just getting back on the ice after serving a tripping penalty.
Khodorenko would dot the “i” in win 47 seconds later with an empty-netter from Zalpe and Cameron Morrison.
Guzda stopped 32 of 33 shots to backstop his outshot team to the victory.
The Checkers will hit the road to play a Saturday/Sunday back-to-back against the Toronto Marlies this weekend.
Transactions
After producing two goals and an assist against the Penguins, Lockwood earned a promotion to the Panthers. Mackie Samoskevich, who played in Florida’s losses to Minnesota and Winnipeg, was assigned to Charlotte. Samoskevich registered four shots on goal in his first two NHL games and came close to notching his first goal, but caught the cross bar against the Wild. He’ll be back…
The Checkers have also signed forward Brendan Perlini to a PTO.