Checkers Drop Second Straight to Hartford
AHL Charlotte Checkers

Checkers Drop Second Straight to Hartford

Published on March 18, 2026 under American Hockey League (AHL)
Charlotte Checkers News Release


CHARLOTTE, NC- The Checkers' weekday woes carried over into Wednesday's rematch with Hartford, which they dropped by a score of 5-2.

A tally within the first two minutes of play put the Wolf Pack in the driver's seat early, and the visitors would tack on two more before the first intermission to put a strangle hold on the contest.

Hartford's lead would push all the way to 5-0 before Charlotte found the back of the net courtesy of Jack Devine, but that would be the extent of the Checkers' rally attempt. Noah Gregor hammered home a one-timer in the final two minutes of regulation, but it was too little, too late for the home team.

QUOTES

Coach Geordie Kinnear on switching goalies early in the first period One, it's not a great start so you've got to change it up, change something. Obviously that didn't work, because it didn't get much better after that.

Kinnear on the energy level from the start of the game We had a two-on-one right off the hop, and they scored on their first shot. It kind of put us back a little bit, and then we took a penalty, and then they scored on the next shot after that, after the power play. I didn't think we lacked energy, but if you look individually, it was not a good couple of games and that hurts the collective a little bit. We'll reassess, move on and continue to get better.

Kinnear on losing two games in a row We lost two games. I'm not going to overreact. It's probably not what we're used to, but as a coach and as a group, I do feel that you learn more from these types of situations than you do if you rattled seven in a row. We won five in a row, now we've lost two and now again we move on. We're not going to look back as a group all off the sudden because we lost two and start looking in the rearview mirror. We're going to always look ahead.

Kinnear on the mindset of not overreacting It's just the way to go about business. If we need to address something we always address it, and we always tell everyone that extreme ownership is very important. I didn't like my game yesterday, so there's an individual that has to get better. Today we didn't like that individually was hurting the collective, and we've got to move on from it, continue to get better and be laser focused. Honestly if you look at it, there's a cost sometimes. You look at the road trip that was three weeks, we come back off the road, you play two hard games and you play fairly well, but where is that cost going to catch up to us. Again, it's not an excuse, it's just reality. Three weeks on the road is a long period of time. Maybe it caught up to us a little bit. We have to make sure we're doing our part of getting the rest, correcting our mistakes and putting out the right lineup.

NOTES This is the first time the Checkers have lost consecutive games in regulation ... The Checkers are 2-4-0-0 against Hartford this season ... This was the second time this season that the Checkers have allowed five or more goals in back-to-back games (Nov. 29 & Dec. 5) ... The Checkers have not scored a power-play goal since Feb. 16 (0-for-34) ... Starter Kirill Gerasimyuk was replaced by Louis Domingue 12 minutes into the first ... Ludvig Jansson, Mitch Vande Sompel, Liam McLinskey, Colton Huard, Kai Schwindt, Gracyn Sawchyn, Wilmer Skoog and Cooper Black were the scratches for Charlotte

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American Hockey League Stories from March 18, 2026


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