Griffins avoid elimination with Game 3 win over Toronto Marlies

By Pat Evans –

GRAND RAPIDS – After two less-than-stellar games in Toronto, the Grand Rapids Griffins turned in an inspired 5-2 win at home in Van Andel Arena last night.

The win came as the team faced elimination in the best-of-five series. However, the Griffins will still need to win the next two games at Van Andel Arena this weekend to advance to the next round.

“On Sunday I said you don’t win a series after two wins,” Griffins head coach Jeff Blashill said. “Well, you don’t win a series after one win for us, all we did was win one hockey game.

“Ultimately we need to win three.”

Grand Rapids played a much better game Wednesday night than the two games in Toronto, but it didn’t start so well. The Marlies jumped out to a 1-0 lead with a goal by forward Troy Bodie.

“Besides that first goal, we didn’t falter after that,” Griffins captain and forward Jeff Hoggan said. “We stuck with and were complete for sure.”

The Griffins’ goal-scoring was kicked off when forward Andy Miele (Grosse Pointe Woods) took the puck and dipped it behind the goal line before flicking it top shelf over Marlie goalie Christopher Gibson’s shoulder.

The two teams went into the locker rooms tied, 1-1.

“I walked away from the first period saying, ‘Boy that’s two teams just going back and forth,” Blashill said. “But our second period, we were able to get more pressure and maintain some more zone time. That was the difference.”

Midway through the second period, the Griffins took the lead on the power play when Andreas Athanasiou fired a puck past Gibson.

A few minutes later, Teemu Pulkkinen was on a breakaway and was pulled down, resulting in a penalty shot, which was saved by Gibson.

The Griffins were looking for their third goal for some breathing room when defenseman Nick Jensen fired a puck form the puck and it bounced up and over Gibson into the net.

The puck had grazed forward Tyler Bertuzzi’s pants, giving him credit for his first AHL goal in his first AHL playoff game. He sat the first two games of the series with the flu.

“It hit my pants and popped over the goalie,” Bertuzzi said. “They all count.”

Blashill said the team’s presence in front of the goal was much better than the previous two games, when the Marlies were the team to dominate the creases.

Less than a minute following Bertuzzi’s goal, Pulkkinen found himself speeding along toward the net and found some space above Gibson’s shoulder for his fourth of the playoffs.

Toronto made a comeback effort scoring a goal by pulling Gibson during a power play and finding the net with approximately eight minutes left in the game.

Pulkkinen added his fifth the series and the Griffins fifth of the game with an empty-netter with just under four minutes to play.

Following a disastrous playoff start on Saturday and sitting Sunday, Griffins goalie Tom McCollum 25 saves for his first career playoff win.

“He’s been a real good goalie in this league, but he hasn’t had that chance to get that first playoff win,” Blashill said. “Obviously this will help his confidence and we’ll need him to be great on Saturday like he has been through large parts of this year.”

The Griffins will try to preserve their 2015 postseason when they host the Marlies for Games 4 and 5, played on Saturday and Sunday.