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Griffins Update

Published
by
Megan Hirdes
on October 6, 2006
in AHL and Griffins
. 0 Comments

This is a new feature at On The Wings that Matt has asked me to write. Hopefully, I will write about once a week just to report what’s going on with the Wings AHL affiliate. The Grand Rapids Griffins are made up of players assigned by either Detroit or Edmonton, as well as a few with AHL contracts. I will focus mainly on Detroit prospects, though the general success of the team will be reported.

Tonight is the Griffins season opener. They play the San Antonio Rampage in San Antonio at 8:00 PM. When they take the ice tonight, the Griffins will hardly resemble the team from last year. Their roster is as follows:
Goaltenders
33- Jimmy Howard (DET)

1- Stefan Liv (DET)

Defense
3- Danny Syrvet (EDM)

4- Dan Smith (DET)

8- Nick Naumenko (GR Professional Tryout)

12- Tom Galvin (GR Professional Tryout)

18- Jason Becket (GR Professional Tryout)

22- Kyle Quincey (DET)

28- Derek Meech (DET)

Jonathan Ericsson (DET-Injured)

Offense
7- Stephane Goulet (EDM)

9- Kip Miller (GR)

10- Brock Radunske (EDM)

11- Krys Kolanos (DET)

14- Matt Hussey (DET)

15- Valterri Filppula (DET)

16- Ryan Oulahen (DET)

17- Evan McGrath (DET)

19- Eric Himelfarb (DET)

21- Josh Langfeld (DET)

23- Matt Ellis (DET)

25- Scott Barney (GR)

26- Brendan Brooks (DET)

27- Darryl Bootland (DET)

29- Ryan Keller (GR)

Only Howard, Quincey, Meech, Oulahen, Himelfarb, Ellis and Bootland remain from last season’s team. They had an incredible year, offensively, with 323 goals. 172 of those goals were scored by the top four offensive producers (Jiri Hudler, Donald MacLean, Eric Manlow and Tomas Kopecky)-all of whom are gone. The front offices of both the Red Wings and the Griffins have done a good job of getting some high production skaters.

The Griffins played only two exhibition games, and had a somewhat pathetic showing for both. The lost the fist to the Chicago Wolves, 3-2. The second was an 8-5 loss to the 05-06 Conference Champion Milwaukee Admirals. Hopefully, the regular season will have better results.

This season, there are a few key prospects to keep an eye on. Jimmy Howard is an obvious one. He’s already proven he can succeed at the AHL level in the regular season. He’ll be looking to prove that he can play in the post-season. Stefan Liv is a very exciting addition. It’ll be interesting to see how he adjusts to North American hockey. He and Howard will make a great tandem and will hopefully lead GR to the Calder Cup. On defense, the Wings have Kyle Quincey coming up. His skills were seen quite clearly during the Preseason games for Detroit. On offense, Darryl Bootland and Valterri Filppula will hopefully play on the same line once again, though their linemate will be absent (Kopecky). They were arguably the Griffins best line last season. Filppula is on track to reach the NHL quite soon. If Bootland has another season like this past one, it could give him a much better chance of making the Wings next season.

Kronwall skipping Olympics, will play for GR instead

Published
by
Matt Saler
on January 27, 2006
in AHL, Griffins, Links and Olympics
. 0 Comments

He’s expected to make his return on 04. Feb against Syracuse. Ansar Khan has more here.

Link

Legace goes to Grand Rapids for conditioning stint

Published
by
Matt Saler
on December 30, 2005
in AHL, Chris Osgood, Griffins, Injuries, Links and Manny Legace
. 0 Comments

Manny will likely spend a week there before returning to back up Osgood.

Link

GameDay: @ Buffalo (12-13-2-1), 8:00 EST

Published
by
Matt Saler
on December 10, 2003
in 2003-2004, GameDay, Griffins, Sabres and Scott Walker
. 1 Comment

The Wings play their first and only game against the Buffalo Sabres tonight. The Sabres have had a passable season and should present more than enough of a challenge for the insanely decimated Red Wings. This is a chance for Wings fans to see their future and all goes well, it’s a bright one. There will be seven Grand Rapids Griffins players in the roster tonight.

Because Dominik did, after all, aggravate his groin injury during Monday’s game and because Manny Legace has a sprained knee, the Wings were forced to call up Curtis Joseph, who will start, and Joey MacDonald. The Wings will be without Steve Thomas, Chris Chelios, Ray Whitney, and Steve Yzerman besides all the other injuries the team has had for a while now. That adds up to ten regulars out of the lineup.

The Wings will be relying very much on Pavel Datsyuk and Brett Hull, both of whom have been on scoring tears recently, to provide the bulk of their offense. The Wings are very fortunate to have such an opponent as the Sabres for their first game with about half the team sidelined because if they were facing a team with some serious talent, they’d be destroyed. Hopefully, Joseph can find some kind of motivation within himself to play well tonight because I have a feeling the Wings will need his help in a big way.