Charlotte Checkers, always stocked with NHL dreams, might be uniquely talented in 2022

It was Wednesday afternoon in a frigid Bojangles Coliseum, two days before the Charlotte Checkers opened their 2022-23 season, when Zac Dalpe was asked to summarize his entire career in a few sentences.

The 32-year-old center had just finished practice. His leg pads were still on, his skates still frosty. The team captain started his pro hockey career in Charlotte 13 years ago, when the Checkers hosted their inaugural season in 2010-11 — and he’s been a bunch of places since, from Raleigh to Vancouver, Buffalo, Minnesota and elsewhere.

Dalpe laughed at the daunting task of summing all that up but offered a friendly shrug nonetheless: “Yeah, I could try, sure.”

“I first started out as a young, naive, skilled player, and then I kind of got swallowed up by the beast of pro hockey,” Dalpe said. “Meaning, you try to find your role, your niche. It doesn’t work. You get traded. You keep getting traded. You have six knee surgeries. And then you try to find your game later on in your career. And here I am.”

He added: “That being said, at this point in my career, I feel like now I’m playing my best hockey.”

The Checkers, like every year, are stocked with players with NHL dreams. Fans watching the team’s season- and home-opener against the Hartford Wolfpack on Friday at 7 p.m. will see a bunch of players from different walks of life and different professional ceilings begin their collective quest for a Calder Cup, the league’s top team prize, and their individual quests for a call from the Florida Panthers, the Checkers’ NHL affiliate.

But fans, too, might see something else.

Players like Dalpe exemplify why.

Dalpe is one of a handful of veterans on the team with notable NHL experience. He’s played 154 games for six different teams. Riley Nash, who began his pro hockey career at the same time and same place as Dalpe, has played in 627 games. Michael Del Zotto has 736 NHL games to his name. Chris Tierney, 561 games. Gerry Mayhew, 57 games. And so on.

Part of why this team has so much NHL experience is because the Checkers organization fosters a place where veterans want to be. Players regularly referenced the organization’s “family” atmosphere on Wednesday. Evidence of that is everywhere: The team is led by head coach Geordie Kinnear, who was an assistant in Charlotte from 2010-2016, and he’s helped by at least two assistants, Bobby Sanguinetti and Jared Staal, who once played for the Checkers.

Another reason, though, lies in NHL economics.

The NHL salary cap is set at $82.5 million for 2022-23. This is the first time in three seasons it has risen — after seven straight years of cap ceiling increases from 2013-14 through 2019-20 — as the league recovers from revenue challenges posted by the COVID-19 pandemic. (The league’s salary cap in 2019-20 was $81.5 million.)

Because of these tighter-than-normal constrictions, the Florida Panthers will start their 2022-23 season with a league-minimum 20 players on their roster. And as a result, a whole bunch of NHL-caliber players will be playing in the AHL.

“I definitely think think the American league will have more established veterans that got squeezed out this year,” said Nash, who played for three different teams in 2021-22. “It’s unfortunate, but I mean, it happens in every workforce, and you gotta try to make yourself valuable and keep improving. And hopefully you’ll find another chance and make it stick.”

Dalpe agreed.

“I think the whole league is going to be juiced, to be honest with you,” said the native of Paris, Canada. “I think a lot of teams are in cap — I don’t want to use the word ‘trouble,’ it’s just the way it is for right now — and a lot of good players including here in Charlotte could be in the NHL and just can’t fit into the cap. ... It’s going to be a juiced league. But, you know what, you gotta play at a high pace to be at the highest level, so why not do it here?”

While experience abounds, there are still plenty of younger players on the Checkers in whom the Florida Panthers see potential. Lucas Carlsson, 25, who was acquired from the Chicago Blackhawks in April 2021, will start with the Checkers this season. So will Grigory Denisenko, 22, who signed a three-year, entry-level contract in 2020, and Justin Sourdif, 20, a third-round draft pick in 2020.

“There are just a lot of NHL games on our team,” Aleksi Heponiemi, a 23-year-old 2017 draft pick, said on Wednesday. “They know how the game’s played. They’ve been around. So it’s really good to be around.”

Kinnear, the team’s head coach, hopes that leads to success. The Checkers won the Calder Cup in 2018-19 and made an admirable run to the league quarterfinals in 2021-22.

He also hopes it brings his players closer to their NHL dreams, too.

“Everyone, that’s their goal, right, to play in the National Hockey League,” Kinnear said. “We want to get them to where they want to go. We want to maximize their skill set. ... Hard work always pays off. You just don’t know when that’s going to happen. Just make sure you’re ready.”

Charlotte Checkers schedule

Home games are in bold and take place in Bojangles Coliseum. All games can be viewed on AHL TV.

This story was originally published October 14, 2022 at 5:45 AM.

Alex Zietlow

The Charlotte Observer

Alex Zietlow writes about the Carolina Panthers and the ways in which sports intersect with life for The Charlotte Observer, where he has been a reporter since August 2022. Zietlow’s work has been honored by the Pro Football Writers Association, the N.C. and S.C. Press Associations, as well as the Associated Press Sports Editors (APSE) group. He’s earned six APSE Top 10 distinctions for his coverage on a variety of topics, from billion-dollar stadium renovations to the small moments of triumph that helped a Panthers kicker defy the steepest odds in sports. Zietlow previously wrote for The Herald in Rock Hill (S.C.) from 2019-22. Support my work with a digital subscription