Patrick Williams, TheAHL.com Options Author
With the AHL celebrating its ninetieth anniversary this season, the Grand Rapids Griffins are making some historical past of their very own.
Saturday’s 3-2 victory in opposition to the Toronto Marlies at Coca-Cola Coliseum on Saturday pushed the Griffins’ file to 18-1-0-1. It’s the third-best 20-game begin in league historical past, surpassed solely by the 2004-05 Manchester Monarchs (19-1-0-0) and the 2005-06 Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins (18-0-2-0).
And it’s not as if these Griffins haven’t confronted some uneven waters early. They misplaced ahead Nate Danielson to recall by the Detroit Crimson Wings after he had performed simply 4 video games. And at one level final month, goaltenders Sebastian Cossa and Michal Postava have been each injured.
Cossa, the AHL Goaltender of the Month for November, earned his fifth consecutive win on Saturday. He has allowed simply three targets in his previous three begins, and his goaltending numbers are pushing the absurd at 10-1-0 with a 1.56 goals-against common and a .943 save share.
Most encouraging for the mother or father Detroit Crimson Wings is that their high prospects in Grand Rapids are getting an opportunity to develop in a profitable surroundings, with loads of management from their veteran core.
When the Griffins missed the Calder Cup Playoffs in 2023, Crimson Wings govt vice chairman and basic supervisor Steve Yzerman made his displeasure fairly public. Yzerman, who was with the Tampa Bay Lightning as they constructed a championship group, anticipated a Grand Rapids to be uncovered to high-pressure, late-season competitors. He promoted Dan Watson from ECHL Toledo to take over as head coach, and the Griffins have made the postseason every of the final two years.
Free-agent signing John Leonard, a Second Workforce AHL All-Star and a Calder Cup finalist with Charlotte final yr, has 17 targets in 17 video games with Grand Rapids. Eduards Tralmaks (11) and Dominik Shine (10) have already hit double digits in targets additionally, and Sheldon Dries – the definition of a high two-way ahead – has 15 factors in 16 video games. On the again finish, Erik Gustafsson, Justin Holl, William Lagesson and Ian Mitchell have greater than 1,100 mixed video games of NHL expertise. Two-time Calder Cup winner Dustin Tokarski has been introduced in to offer goaltending depth. On and on it goes; up and down the Grand Rapids roster it’s troublesome to search out even the slightest of weaknesses.
Michael Brandsegg-Nygård, the fifteenth general decide within the 2024 NHL Draft, has 14 factors in 15 video games with the Griffins after starting the season in Detroit. Cossa went fifteenth general in 2021. Defensemen William Wallinder (thirty second general in 2020) and Antti Tuomisto (thirty fifth in 2019) have been second-round picks. Up entrance, third-year professional Amadeus Lombardi broke out with 19 targets in solely 44 video games final season; the 2022 fourth-rounder is producing at greater than some extent per sport to this point in 2025-26. And 21-year-old Ondrej Becher, taken within the third spherical of the 2024 NHL Draft, is coming off a stable rookie AHL season.
The Griffins have already got constructed an 11-point hole for the Central Division lead. However there may be nonetheless greater than 4 months to go within the common season, and lots can go proper – and flawed – for any group on this league in such a size of time.
However the everlasting winning-versus-development debate? The Griffins are exhibiting that they will do loads of each.
On the American Hockey League beat for twenty years, TheAHL.com options author Patrick Williams additionally at the moment covers the league for NHL.com and FloSports and is a daily contributor on SiriusXM NHL Community Radio. He was the recipient of the AHL’s James H. Ellery Memorial Award for his excellent protection of the league in 2016.
