Patrick Williams, TheAHL.com Features Writer
Something feels different about the Charlotte Checkers.
Maybe it was an aggressive offseason which saw the organization bring in some top-line veteran help. Could be the 6-1-0-1 start that head coach Geordie Kinnear’s club has put together. Perhaps it was going into Hershey last weekend and snatching three of four points from the defending Calder Cup champion Bears. Or possibly it’s an overall organizational swagger that develops when your NHL parent team wins its first Stanley Cup.
With any or all of the above reasons, it’s clear that the Checkers are one of the top teams in the AHL over the first month of the 2024-25 season. Several Charlotte players had an up-close view of the Florida Panthers’ Stanley Cup run last spring, skating with the team as black aces. Development in Charlotte has become a proven track to a roster spot in Florida since the two sides struck a new affiliation deal in 2020. First-round picks Mackie Samoskevich and Spencer Knight won jobs with the Panthers after spending last season with Charlotte. Patrick Giles played his first nine NHL games after making the Panthers out of training camp. Star defenseman Gustav Forsling is a Charlotte graduate as well.
Joining the Checkers have been established help in the form of defenseman Jaycob Megna and forwards Kyle Criscuolo and John Leonard, providing high hopes before the season had even started. Chris Driedger, who backstopped Coachella Valley to the Finals in 2024, is back with the organization where he got his career on track. Trevor Carrick, who won a Calder Cup in 2019 with the Checkers, has returned to the Queen City and has points in each of his last seven games. Aidan McDonough came to the Checkers following one season with the Abbotsford Canucks and has seven goals already, including a hat trick on opening night at Wilkes-Barre/Scranton.
“I’ve been impressed with those guys coming in,” Kinnear said. “We have a certain way we want to play, and they’ve bought into it. I think they’re good people and good competitors.”
There are intriguing names new to the AHL as well. Forward Oliver Okuliar signed with Florida after a 24-goal season with Czech team Hradec Kralove last season. Another Czech addition is 6-foot-6, 229-pound defenseman Mikulas Hovorka, who earned a two-year contract with the Panthers and already has two years of high-level European training. Rookie defenseman Marek Alscher is a second-round NHL draft pick who has looked like he belongs already. Up front is rookie Sandis Vilmanis, a fifth-round pick who amassed 38 goals last season in the Ontario Hockey League.
Already blessed with speed, this is a Checkers team that puts a strong emphasis on playing with pace. It is the sort of confident, assertive game that reflects how the Panthers want their youngsters to learn to play. The skill and finish are obvious – the Checkers’ 4.63 goals scored per game lead the AHL – but they can also control the puck and are allowing just 25.0 shots on goal per game, second-fewest in the league. In the back end of their recent visit to Hershey, they held the Bears to 16 shots, including just three across the third period and overtime.
Charlotte’s special teams also continue to be a major issue for opponents; the Checkers went a combined 3-for-6 on the power play in their two games at Hershey and lead the AHL at 40.5 percent (15-for-37), while their penalty kill is clicking at 87.8 percent and has nearly as many shorthanded goals for (four) as power-play goals against (five).
Moreover, the Checkers have been able to win even without some of their banged-up veterans. Captain Zac Dalpe has not played since opening night, and Driedger missed the weekend in Hershey, with Ken Appleby and Cooper Black taking starts. Another good test is set for this weekend when the Toronto Marlies, off to their own 6-1-0-1 start, visit Bojangles Coliseum for games Saturday and Sunday. From there the Checkers take off on their first extended road trip of the season, with five games in nine nights visiting Hartford, Springfield and Bridgeport.
Florida has worked a long time to build a sustained winning culture, which has resulted in back-to-back conference championships and last season’s Stanley Cup title. It has meshed nicely with the well-built operation that the Checkers have implemented since entering the AHL in 2010. The atmosphere is one that Kinnear compared to what he experienced as a prospect with the New Jersey Devils in the 1990’s.
“I developed because I got to watch Scott Stevens, Ken Daneyko, all those guys,” recounted Kinnear, a 1992 draft pick by New Jersey who spent seven seasons (1993-99, 2000-01) as a defenseman with the Albany River Rats. “You go to Florida now, and you’ve got (Aleksander) Barkov, you’ve got Forsling, (Aaron) Ekblad, all those guys. It helps the development because those guys are elite athletes who play hard, who practice hard every single day. It becomes the environment that develops.
“As a young guy, you have no excuse not to follow that.”
On the American Hockey League beat for two decades, TheAHL.com features writer Patrick Williams also currently covers the league for NHL.com and FloSports and is a regular contributor on SiriusXM NHL Network Radio. He was the recipient of the AHL’s James H. Ellery Memorial Award for his outstanding coverage of the league in 2016.