Patrick Williams, TheAHL.com Features Writer
Slice up the regular season any which way, and the Grand Rapids Griffins probably set some sort of record.
Their 23-1-0-1 open marked the best 25-game start in AHL history. After 36 games, the season’s midpoint, they held a 30-3-2-1 record. The 40-game mark? They sat at 32-5-2-1. At 50 games, it was 40-7-2-1. They had a 15-game winning streak, the sixth-longest in the league’s 90 seasons.
They had locked up a Calder Cup Playoff berth by March 6, the earliest team to do so since the 1992-93 Binghamton Rangers powerhouse.
On and on, the milestones went. A bit of a late-season stumble slowed down the record-breaking pace, but the Griffins still finished second overall in the AHL standings 51-16-4-1 record, a .743 points percentage that cracks the list of the top 10 all-time best records in league history.
But it has been a wildly unpredictable spring across the AHL, and Grand Rapids has been right in thick of it. They lost Game 1 of their division semifinal series to Manitoba before winning three straight to take the series. And now, thanks to a pair of come-from-behind wins by Chicago at Van Andel Arena last week, the Griffins – already the only division champion left in the field after Providence, Laval and Ontario were all eliminated last round – are facing elimination in the division finals.
In Game 1, Grand Rapids and Chicago went into the third period tied before Wolves captain Josiah Slavin’s goal gave the visitors a 2-1 win. Game 2 proved to be far more galling for the Griffins, who needed all of 4 minutes and 8 seconds to take a 2-0 lead. But Chicago rallied and won it, 4-3 in overtime, on Felix Unger Sörum’s second goal of the night.
That was Saturday. Since then, the Griffins have had time to stew, digest and move forward. It has been a tense spring for the Detroit Red Wings organization after the parent club missed the Stanley Cup Playoffs with a frustrating late slide. Now the hopes of a championship run in Grand Rapids are in danger as well.
Michal Postava has taken all six starts in net this postseason for the Griffins, but if head coach Dan Watson wants to make a change they do have one Sebastian Cossa, a Detroit first-round pick and a two-time AHL All-Star, in reserve. Together Cossa and Postava combined to win the Hap Holmes Memorial Award as the Griffins allowed just 159 goals in the regular season, the fewest in the AHL.
Watson cited Postava’s excellent play down the stretch of the regular season as the reason he was tapped as their Game 1 starter, and there hasn’t been reason to waver. Postava led HC Kometa Brno to a championship in the Czech league last season before signing with Detroit, and he has a 1.82 goals-against average and a .928 save percentage in these playoffs for Grand Rapids.
Fourteen teams have lost the first two games in a best-of-five series and rallied to win it. Grand Rapids can claim one of those comebacks, knocking out Toronto in 2015. But only four teams have won after dropping the first two at home, including Milwaukee last spring against Rockford. There are no glaring reasons for the Griffins’ predicament. The power play is clicking at 33.3 percent (6-for-18). They have allowed only three power-play goals in six games. At 2.50 goals per game, the Griffins are well off their regular-season pace (3.54). But this is the postseason, where defensive play tightens up and coaching staffs have an entire series to pick apart opposing offenses.
But losing leads just can’t happen in the Calder Cup Playoffs. Grand Rapids was 38-3-1-0 in the regular season when scoring the first goal of the game. They are 0-2 in this series.
Nobody needs to remind the Griffins. They know that.
“I thought we laid off the gas when we got the lead,” captain Dominik Shine said after Game 2. “We can get the job done. I’m not concerned.”
Game 3 will be a chance to confirm those words. It’s that simple.