Patrick Williams, TheAHL.com Features Writer
With the AHL celebrating its 90th anniversary this season, the Grand Rapids Griffins are making some history of their own.
Saturday’s 3-2 victory against the Toronto Marlies at Coca-Cola Coliseum on Saturday pushed the Griffins’ record to 18-1-0-1. It is the third-best 20-game start in league history, surpassed only 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 have not faced some choppy waters early. They lost forward Nate Danielson to recall by the Detroit Red Wings after he had played just four games. And at one point last month, goaltenders Sebastian Cossa and Michal Postava were both injured.
Cossa, the AHL Goaltender of the Month for November, earned his fifth consecutive win on Saturday. He has allowed just three goals in his past three starts, and his goaltending numbers are pushing the absurd at 10-1-0 with a 1.56 goals-against average and a .943 save percentage.
Most encouraging for the parent Detroit Red Wings is that their top prospects in Grand Rapids are getting a chance to develop in a winning environment, with plenty of leadership from their veteran core.
When the Griffins missed the Calder Cup Playoffs in 2023, Red Wings executive vice president and general manager Steve Yzerman made his displeasure quite public. Yzerman, who was with the Tampa Bay Lightning as they built a championship organization, expected a Grand Rapids to be exposed to high-pressure, late-season competition. He promoted Dan Watson from ECHL Toledo to take over as head coach, and the Griffins have made the postseason each of the last two years.
Free-agent signing John Leonard, a Second Team AHL All-Star and a Calder Cup finalist with Charlotte last year, has 17 goals in 17 games with Grand Rapids. Eduards Tralmaks (11) and Dominik Shine (10) have already hit double digits in goals also, and Sheldon Dries – the definition of a top two-way forward – has 15 points in 16 games. On the back end, Erik Gustafsson, Justin Holl, William Lagesson and Ian Mitchell have more than 1,100 combined games of NHL experience. Two-time Calder Cup winner Dustin Tokarski has been brought in to provide goaltending depth. On and on it goes; up and down the Grand Rapids roster it is difficult to find even the slightest of weaknesses.
Michael Brandsegg-Nygård, the 15th overall pick in the 2024 NHL Draft, has 14 points in 15 games with the Griffins after beginning the season in Detroit. Cossa went 15th overall in 2021. Defensemen William Wallinder (32nd overall in 2020) and Antti Tuomisto (35th in 2019) were second-round picks. Up front, third-year pro Amadeus Lombardi broke out with 19 goals in only 44 games last season; the 2022 fourth-rounder is producing at more than a point per game so far in 2025-26. And 21-year-old Ondrej Becher, taken in the third round of the 2024 NHL Draft, is coming off a solid rookie AHL season.
The Griffins already have built an 11-point gap for the Central Division lead. But there is still more than four months to go in the regular season, and a lot can go right – and wrong – for any team in this league in such a length of time.
But the eternal winning-versus-development debate? The Griffins are showing that they can do plenty of both.