Charlotte powers past Lehigh Valley, heads into playoffs with momentum

Charlotte’s power play arrived at the perfect time. In its regular-season finale, the Checkers beat Lehigh Valley 4-1 in game 72 and turned a season-best special-teams burst into a clear playoff warning shot, going 4-for-8 on the man advantage as the AHL regular season reached its final day.

Sandis Vilmanis opened the scoring late in the first period, giving Charlotte a lead that held into the third before the special teams took over. Ben Steeves made it 2-0 early in the final frame with a one-timer, and Jack Studnicka buried two more power-play goals to put the game out of reach. For a team that finished the year with a 15.2 percent power play, the four-goal surge was a striking late-season outlier, the kind of spike that can swing a short playoff series.

The win also showed how Charlotte’s goaltending depth has become part of its identity. Louis Domingue was perfect until he left two minutes into the third period with an injury, and Kirill Gerasimyuk stepped in to finish the job. Gerasimyuk’s four shutouts were already the most by a rookie in franchise history, and the handoff against Lehigh Valley added another reminder that the Checkers can absorb stress in goal without losing their structure.

Charlotte entered the game at 43-22-5-0 and left it with a 44-23-5-0 mark, third in both the Atlantic Division and Eastern Conference. The Checkers had already clinched a Calder Cup Playoffs berth on March 25 and are set to open a best-of-three first-round series Wednesday against the Springfield Thunderbirds at Bojangles Coliseum. That home-ice start gives Charlotte a chance to carry this momentum straight into playoff hockey, with special teams suddenly looking like a real edge rather than a weakness to manage.

Geordie Kinnear said Kai Schwindt’s and Domingue’s injuries were precautionary, and he described Domingue as day to day. He also pointed to the power play finding better rhythm at the right time and framed the season as three stages, training camp, the regular season and the playoff dress rehearsal. Against a Lehigh Valley team that had gone 0-4-2-0 against Charlotte this season and was already eliminated, the Checkers looked less like a group trying to finish and more like one sharpening a weapon. That may be the most important development of all heading into the playoffs.