Gameday Preview: Stars at Charlotte Checkers

Texas Stars
5-2-2-0, 12 pts
#3 Western Conference
atCharlotte Checkers
3-6-0-0, 6 pts
#14 Western Conference
November 8th at 6:00 PM
Time Warner Cable Arena, Charlotte, NC

UPDATE: As expected, Curtis McKenzie has been recalled to Dallas.

The playoff reunion tour continues for Texas as they will faceoff against Drew MacIntyre either tonight or Monday in Charlotte. The former Marlie who stoned the Stars repeatedly in the Western Conference Finals signed a free agent contract with Carolina this summer. He's having a rough start to the season record-wise, going 3-4, but his numbers are decent overall, 2.29 GAA and .928 SV%. MacIntyre is not getting the run support he's had in prior seasons. The Checkers are the second-worst scoring offense in the league, just 1.89 goals per game.

The Stars are doing better in net after Jussi Rynnas' solid performance on Wednesday. Coach Laxdal was looking to continue rotating the goalies but indicated he's not against the idea of giving back-to-back starts to one of the two if they get hot. The Stars are at 3.22 goals against on the season and that number has to come down to stay at the top of the pile in the West.

By the time the puck drops tonight, the Stars will probably have one fewer forward at their disposal. Dallas is expecting both Valeri Nichushkin and Cody Eakin to be out against the Sharks tonight. Curtis McKenzie, Travis Morin or both could be lacing them up in the NHL this evening.

Carolina is hurting at the NHL level and have pulled a lot of AHLers from prior seasons up. They may even win the Connor McDavid sweepstakes at this rate. That means the Checkers are also lacking AHL talent. Zach Boychuk, Riley Nash, Chris Terry, and Brett Bellemore are all names getting regular ice-time in Raleigh this season. Greg Nemisz, who joined the team via trade last year, leads them on offense with six points. Phil Di Giuseppe leads them from the rookie ranks with five points and a healthy plus-6.

The Checkers haven't played since Sunday, a 2-1 win against Hamilton. Their two game set against the Bulldogs was actually the first time that the two teams had played each other in franchise history.

Stars injury/call up report:
McKenzie (call up)
Dowling (questionable)

Website: gocheckers.com
Checkers Social Media: Social Media
Blog (unofficial): Chasing Checkers
Twitter: @checkershockey
Twitter: @mikelappan (PR)
Twitter: @PaulBranecky

Comments

  1. Curtis got the call up: http://stars.nhl.com/club/news.htm?id=738250

    ReplyDelete

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