Recap: Checkers 3, Islanders 0
Oct 13, 2024Jakub Skarek was terrific and stopped 35 of 37 shots on Sunday afternoon, but former teammate Ken Appleby turned aside all 21 he faced as the Bridgeport Islanders (0-2-0-0), American Hockey League affiliate of the New York Islanders, suffered a 2-0 loss to the Charlotte Checkers (2-0-0-0) at Total Mortgage Arena.
It was Appleby’s eighth career AHL shutout. Aidan McDonough and Rasmus Asplund (two) had the goals for Charlotte.
Despite both teams receiving a man advantage in the first period, neither capitalized and took a scoreless deadlock into the second. Skarek stopped all eleven shots he faced, while Appleby blocked four.
Charlotte broke through early in the second period and never looked back. At the 3:28 mark, McDonough went to the net and sent a rebound home for his fourth goal of the weekend. He recorded a hat trick in his Checkers debut on Saturday at Wilkes-Barre/Scranton.
Asplund added insurance with two goals in the third period to solidify their second win to begin the season. At 17:39, he extended Charlotte’s lead with a five-on-three, power-goal goal from Matt Luff and Ryan McAllister. Asplund tacked on an empty-net tally in the final eight seconds.
The Islanders went 6-for-7 on the penalty kill, but 0-for-7 on the power play.