by Jerry Feitelberg

photo credit by the San Jose Barracuda-Charlotte Checkers promo page

SAN JOSE–The San Jose Barracuda, hoping to win their second game in a row, fell to the Charlotte Checkers 4-1 Monday afternoon at the SAP Center. The Barracuda beat the Stockton Thunder 5-1 Sunday but they appeared to run out of gas in a lackluster performance against Charlotte. Neither team scored in the first period. The Checkers outshot the ‘Cuda 12- 6. San Jose scored at the 6:28 mark of the second period. Michael Haley tallied his sixth goal of the year to get things going for San Jose. The Checkers outshot San Jose 11-4 and had 23-10 edge after two periods of play.

Charlotte owned the third period. They scored four unanswered goals to put the game away. They scored a power-play goal with 3:36 played to tie the score. Justin Shugg tallied his fifth of the year. Assists went to Jake Chelios and Brock McGinn. They scored again to take a 2-1 lead. The Checkers’ David Wohlberg score a short-handed goal that seemed to take the fight out of the Barracuda. Patrick Brown picked up the assist. Ethan Werek scored his first of the year at the 9:24 mark to give Charlotte a 3-1 advantage. T.J. Hensick and Justin Shugg assisted on the play. Charlotte’s fourth goal of the period came with a little more than two minutes left in the game. Zach Boychuk put the puck into an empty net. Charlotte wins 4-1.

Game Notes – Aaron Dell started in goal for San Jose. Dell entered the game with a record of 4-5-2. He GAA (goals against average) was a respectable 2.68 and he had a .910 save percentage. Daniel Altshuller was in goal for Charlotte. Altshuller’s record before the start of the game was 3-0-0 with a sparkling 1.97 GAA and an impressive .933 save percentage. With the loss, San Jose’s record drops to 11-10-2-3 while Charlotte’s improves to 17-11-1-0. The two teams meet again Wednesday afternoon at the SAP Center at 1:15 pm.

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