Griffins complete historic series comeback with Game 5 win over Marlies
Photos by Amanda O’Toole/MiHockey
By Pat Evans –
GRAND RAPIDS – Despite facing a two-game deficit against the Toronto Marlies heading into their homestand last Wednesday, the Grand Rapids Griffins are heading to the American Hockey League Western Conference semifinals.
Grand Rapids won three straight games, including Sunday’s 3-1 victory, to become just the 11th team in AHL history to overcome a 0-2 deficit in a best-of-five series.
The Griffins dropped both games in Toronto, including a lopsided 7-4 loss, but upon arriving in Grand Rapids, the team took the series on a period-by-period basis, and ended up prevailing when the final buzzer sounded Sunday evening at Van Andel Arena.
“In the locker room you could see how bad we all wanted it,” said forward Andreas Athanasiou, who had four goals in the series. “Every game we had our back against the wall, we stepped up, everybody stepped up.”
Louis-Marc Aubry, Alden Hirschfeld and Athanasiou scored for the Griffins in the decisive Game 5, while Tom McCollum stopped 35 of the 36 shots he faced to record his third straight win.
Aubry started the scoring after he went to the penalty box for roughing in an incident in front of the Toronto net. The Griffins forward came out of the box and found his way pack in front of the net during a Griffins rush as defenseman Alexey Marchenko fired a shot and deflected it into the net.
Early in the second period, Toronto forward Sam Carrick gained control of the puck in front of Griffins goalie Tom McCollum and roofed a shot to tie the game up 1-1.
A little more than 12 minutes into the second, the puck was fired at the Toronto net where Marlies goalie Antoine Bibeau caught it and set it down for defenseman Viktor Loov, who whiffed on it and skated behind the net. Grand Rapids forward Alden Hirschfeld took advantage of the open puck and flipped it up and in over Bibeau’s glove.
Late in the second period the Griffins picked up two penalties in a scrum and another with a delay-of-game penalty a few seconds later giving Toronto a 5-on-3 advantage.
The Griffins killed off the 5-on-3 advantage early in the third period, however, thanks to a penalty kill unit that was strong in the three home games.
“Our penalty kill was great, that was a big factor in us winning,” head coach Jeff Blashill said.
With 17 minutes left in the game, McCollum handled a flurry of shots from Toronto and Athanasiou scooped up the puck in the corner before taking the puck down the ice, shifting into another gear and beating Bibeau glove side.
The goal was the full momentum swing of the game, Blashill said, giving the Griffins a 3-1 lead and a solid defense corps to lean on.
The defense was anchored by McCollum, who turned around his series performance after he let in six goals in Game 1. Sunday, McCollum made 35 saves.
“After that first game I was really itching to get back in,” McCollum said. “And when I did, as a team, I think we all started to play better and I started to feel more and more comfortable and it led to a positive result.”
The difference in the series was Grand Rapids’ veteran leadership of captain Jeff Hoggan and defensemen Nathan Paestch and Brennan Evans, according to the Griffins’ bench boss.
“[Our] great leadership, through example, did an unbelievable job of executing on a shift-by-shift basis and really raising our urgency after games one and two,” Blashill said.
The Griffins will take on Rockford in the next series, beginning with a game Wednesday at Van Andel Arena. The two teams spilt eight games during the regular season.