CALM COMPETITOR
We’re big fans of the Griffins. We’re also big fans of their fans.
Huntington is proud to support the Grand Rapids Griffins, through all the wins and losses. No matter the outcome, it’s a joy to watch you from the stands, competing your hearts out. From all your fans at Huntington, go Griffins!
Vol. 28, No. 1
TABLE OF CONTENTS
STARTING LINEUP
26........ FIRE & ICE
Down-to-earth Sebastian Cossa is working hard to harness all the elements needed to become a starting goaltender in the National Hockey League.
34........ TAKING THE NEXT STEP
Antti Tuomisto continues to head in the right direction toward his goal of being an NHL defenseman.
42........ ALWAYS A WINNER
Dependable and reliably consistent, former Griffin Tomas Nosek is the type of player that any successful team can employ.
50........ VIDEO GURU
Griffins video coach Erich Junge is responsible for assembling the clips that can offer helpful video analysis throughout the season.
58........ THE RIGHT DIRECTION
As the Grand Rapids Rise prepare for their second Pro Volleyball Federation season, the DeVos family is excited about the growing acceptance of women’s sports in North America.
Cossa
Photo by Mark Newman
WITH GRIFFINS HEAD COACH DAN WATSON
On paper, the prospects for a successful season look promising for the 2024-25 Grand Rapids Griffins. Of course, it’s what happens on the ice that matters.
“No pressure,” Dan Watson said, with a smile.
The second-year head coach of the Griffins is excited to accept the challenge of getting his team ready for another competitive American Hockey League campaign. As his roster was beginning to take shape, he was encouraged by what he saw during the NHL Prospect Games against Dallas and the Red Wings’ training camp in Traverse City.
“I think we can build on what we started last year,” he said. “We know what we want to do and what we want to accomplish. We had a productive summer. We had a lot of Zoom calls to figure out exactly what this season will look like. We’re hoping to continue the momentum we enjoyed toward the end of last season.”
Watson said one of the early challenges is to figure out where players will slot into the lineup –how players and their respective skills will mesh to create the forward lines and defensive pairings.
“The good thing is many of these guys are going to see action in some exhibition games,” Watson said right before the beginning of the Wings’ preseason. “They’re going to be put in spots so we can watch them live. And that’s one of the benefits of having eight exhibition games at the NHL level.”
Watson was confident that the Griffins’ roster would have a healthy balance between youth and experience.
“We will have a great mix of experienced players, and our hope is the young guys take that
next step because we have a good group of young players,” he said. “Team chemistry is important and they’ve already started the team-building process. Guys went out to dinner together and they went to the golf course together as a Griffins team, so they’ve started the process earlier than we did last year.”
He wants everyone to be on the same page.
“We want to be the most competitive, hardestworking, best-in-shape team in the league,” he said. “There are going to be some hard practices this year. That’s a message we want to make sure our guys understand.”
Watson is counting on his returning players to take the next step in their career development. “They’ve got the skills and skating work down last year,” he said. “Now they have to become the most competitive group in the league.”
He is looking forward to seeing the continued growth of players like Marco Kasper, Carter Mazur, and Nate Danielson – all highly touted prospects who are pushing to make inroads into the NHL.
“I think we’re looking for the maturity in their game,” he said. “It’s the way they manage pucks at certain times in the game, the way they compete down low around the nets. They’ve got to learn to defend and make sure they’re strong in the right areas around both net fronts.
“They can take the next step by becoming more competitive in those areas.”
He is also hopeful that defensemen Antti Tuomisto and William Wallinder take advantage of the additional ice time they are likely to see after the graduation of Simon Edvinsson and Albert
Johansson to the NHL.
“They played a lot of minutes last season and we put them into a lot of good situations,” he said “Now we’re going to give them more and they have to be ready to accept the challenge. Both guys look like they had a great summer, so it looks like they’re prepared to do it.”
Goaltending is projected to be one of the team’s strengths, with the return of top prospect Sebastian Cossa and the likely addition of veteran netminder Jack Campbell, who has a Calder Cup title and a 2022 NHL All-Star Game appearance on his résumé.
Improved defensive play propelled last year’s Griffins to finish with a strong second half. With the departure of half of the team’s top-10 goal scorers from a year ago, the Griffins’ best offense this season might be a good defense.
“We want to play with the puck as much as we can,” Watson said. “When we don’t have it we have to find ways to get it back quickly, and that’s through hard work and making sure that we’re in the right spots. We did a really good job of that in the second half last season.”
Watson contends this year’s team needs to focus on creating more scoring chances.
“We gave up too many opportunities to shoot a puck last year, especially early in the year. We were looking for that next play when we just needed to get pucks and more traffic at the net. There are a lot of good goaltenders in the league, and we have to make it hard for them to play their position. I firmly believe we have to simplify our offense, have a shooting mentality, and be ready to crash the net.”
Whether it’s newcomers like Joe Snively, Sheldon Dries and Jakub Rychlovsky, or returnees like Amadeus Lombardi and Elmer Soderblom, Watson is hopeful the Griffins will have the firepower to generate more offense while locking down the defensive zone with smart blue line play and good goaltending. An improved power play will also be a point of emphasis.
“Our goal is to get off to a better start,” Watson said. “We may not be built to score five or six goals per game, but if we have to win games 3-1, 2-1 by defending better, we’re going to win those games.
“With the core group of guys that we have back from last year’s team, we look good on paper. If I were to write down our third and fourth lines this year, I think we should be much improved. We should be able to play those lines against anybody, anytime. And that, I think, is a winning recipe.”
2024-25 GRIFFINS HOCKEY OPERATIONS STAFF
General Manager Shawn Horcoff
Head Coach Dan Watson
Assistant Coach Steph Julien
Assistant Coach Brian Lashoff
Goaltending Coach Roope Koistinen
Video Coach Erich Junge
Athletic Trainer Austin Frank
Assistant Athletic Trainer Katie Berglund Physical Therapist Zack Harvey Equipment Manager Brad Thompson Asst.
Manager Kyle Hornkohl
Jack Rummells
Marcus Kinney
SCOUTING REPORT
MILWAUKEE
OCT. 11, NOV. 29
Milwaukee, the two-time defending Central Division playoff champion, has fallen to the Coachella Valley Firebirds in the Western Conference Finals in each of the last two postseasons. The Griffins and Admirals met in the 2024 Central Division Finals, with Milwaukee taking a 3-2 series victory over Grand Rapids. Milwaukee is the Griffins’ most frequent opponent all time with 220 regular-season meetings, and Grand Rapids’ 113 series victories are the most against any foe.
MANITOBA
OCT. 18, OCT. 19
After leading Manitoba in points (21-34—55) and ranking second among league rookies last season, Brad Lambert returns for his second full campaign. The 20-year-old was selected with the 30th overall pick in the 2022 NHL Entry Draft by Winnipeg and has 58 points (23-35—58) in 78 career AHL games. Lambert made his NHL debut with the Jets on April 18 versus Vancouver, collecting an assist.
Milwaukee head coach Karl Taylor enters his sixth season as bench boss, having begun his tenure during the 201819 campaign. With the Admirals, Taylor has a 204-112-31-13 record (.628) to go with those two Central Division playoff titles and three seasons of 40-plus wins. Taylor has never finished worse than third place in the Central Division with Milwaukee.
Netminder Thomas Milic burst onto the scene in late January and down the stretch helped the Moose secure the final playoff berth in the Central Division. In 33 regularseason games with Manitoba, Milic posted a 19-9-2 record with a 2.72 goals-against average and a .900 save percentage. From March 1 until the end of the regular season, Milic showed a 2.57 GAA, a .901 SV%, and a 14-4-1 record to propel the Moose into the postseason.
ROCKFORD
NOV. 1, NOV. 13
The Griffins and IceHogs met in the Calder Cup Playoffs for just the second time last season, as Grand Rapids took care of Rockford 3-1 in the Central Division Semifinals. Rockford is the Griffins’ thirdmost frequent opponent with 136 regular-season games, and Grand Rapids’ 67 series victories are their fifth-most versus any opponent. The Griffins and IceHogs will meet 12 times this season, the most of any Griffins foe, with seven of those meetings coming in the final 13 games of the season.
CHICAGO
NOV. 15
Chicago went without an NHL affiliate last season and finished with a 23-35-7-7 record (.417), good for last place in the Central Division. However, the experiment did not last long, as the Wolves and Carolina Hurricanes agreed to renew their partnership this past offseason. Chicago and Carolina formerly had a partnership from 2020-23 before the one-year hiatus. The Wolves were the first AHL team without an NHL affiliate since the 1994-95 season,
IOWA
NOV. 22, NOV. 24
The Griffins had Iowa’s number last season, as they finished with a 7-1-0-0 record (.875) against the Wild. That marked Grand Rapids’ best finish against Iowa since it went 4-0-0-0 during the 2014-15 campaign. Since the Wild joined the AHL in 2013-14, the Griffins have a 50-24-5-3 (.659) overall mark and a 25-10-4-2 (.683) ledger inside Van Andel Arena.
CLEVELAND
DEC. 1
Last season, the Cleveland-Grand Rapids series was a tight affair, as five of the eight meetings were decided past regulation and both teams scored 25 goals. Twenty-five percent of the Griffins’ games last season that went past regulation were against the Monsters. Grand Rapids dropped all five games that went past regulation versus Cleveland and finished the season series with a 2-1-3-2 mark (.563).
The IceHogs return two of their top four scorers from last season, Cole Guttman and Brett Seney, in addition to their top-scoring defenseman, Ethan Del Mastro. Seney tied for eighth in the AHL last year with 63 points in 68 games, while Guttman showed 40 points in 39 outings. Del Mastro tied for third among the league’s rookie defensemen with 37 points in 69 contests and was the lone IceHog to be selected to the AHL All-Star Classic.
when the Worcester IceCats went independent.
The Griffins possessed a 3012-2-0 (.705) mark against the Wolves from 2012-17, before Chicago returned the favor by going 32-10-2-0 (.750) against Grand Rapids from 2017-22. The tide has changed once more, as the Griffins have now strung together back-to-back winning seasons against Chicago (10-5-1-2, .639) for the first time since 2015-17 (14-3-1-0, .806).
Sammy Walker returns to the Wild for his third season after leading the team in points (45) and assists (31) last campaign. The former three-time captain at the University of Minnesota has produced 93 career AHL points (41-52—93) in 126 games entering this season. Walker has also suited up in 13 NHL contests with the Minnesota Wild, showing two points (1-1—2).
Trey Fix-Wolansky, a name familiar to Griffins fans, returns to the Monsters for his seventh season with the franchise. The 25-yearold has paced Cleveland in points, assists and goals for two straight campaigns (2022-24) and has totaled 199 points (86-113—199) in 224 career AHL outings. Against the Griffins since 2019-20, Fix-Wolansky has notched 29 points (1118—29) in 27 appearances.
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Dear Griffins Fans,
Looks aren’t everything, but when it comes to the Grand Rapids Griffins’ 2024-25 season, visuals are taking center stage.
The outlook for Dan Watson’s squad appears bright, after he led the Griffins to a second-place finish in the Central Division in 2023-24, guided the team back to the Calder Cup Playoffs, and won a playoff series in his first season as our head coach. This year’s roster will again be filled with some of the brightest and most exciting prospects in the sport, from goaltender Sebastian Cossa (see our cover story on page 26) to dynamic offensive talents like Carter Mazur, Marco Kasper, and Nate Danielson. Fresh faces include Sheldon Dries and Joe Snively, the latter a Calder Cup champion with Hershey each of the last two seasons who envisions hosting both his and the Griffins’ third cups next spring.
They and their teammates will sport a new look on the ice this season thanks to our first jersey redesigns in almost a decade, updates that respect our tradition but introduce a new flair. While our logo and color scheme of red, black, metallic silver, and metallic gold are unchanged, red and gold both take on new prominence in our home and road jerseys. Red – a continued nod to our 23 years of affiliation with the Detroit Red Wings – replaced black on the shoulders while gold replaced silver in the trim, complementing the gold in the Griffins’ logo and conjuring images of ancient lore, when griffins were believed to be guardians of golden treasures.
Speaking of treasures, Van Andel Arena has a big new one this season, a long-awaited and highly anticipated addition to our award-winning game presentation: a four-sided, center-hung videoboard that will further enhance your fan experience. Boasting the same technology and display resolution as those at Comerica Park, these impressive videoboards will provide fans a more intimate and convenient view of live action and highlights than ever before, dramatically impacting the way you experience a game.
Video improvements extend to AHLTV, which has joined the FloSports platform as AHLTV on FloHockey. Whether you’re watching a game played in Grand Rapids or on the road, you’ll enjoy an improved, state-of-the-art video stream. And great news for those who can’t get enough hockey: your AHLTV on FloHockey subscription will not just give you access to every regular-season and Calder Cup Playoff contest for all 32 AHL teams, but to more than 21,000 other pro, college and junior hockey games on FloHockey.
Here’s hoping we all enjoy a memorable season that, in the end, is picture perfect.
Sincerely,
Dan DeVos Chief Executive Officer Grand Rapids Griffins
A Message from The President
Scott Howson PRESIDENT & CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER
Hockey League
Dear Fans,
It is my pleasure to welcome you to the 2024-25 American Hockey League season, the latest chapter in a tradition of excellence that can be traced back to our league’s founding nearly nine decades ago.
The AHL is as proud as ever of its role as the top development league for nearly all of the players, coaches, executives, trainers, broadcasters and officials who you see throughout the National Hockey League today. Generations of our great fans have cheered on future superstars, Stanley Cup champions and Hockey Hall of Famers as they have come through the AHL.
It is my pleasure to welcome you to the 2024-25 Hockey League season, the latest chapter in a excellence that can be traced back to our league’s
This season is sure to be another memorable one, from the excitement of opening night to the pageantry of the AHL All-Star Classic in Coachella Valley to the pure emotion of the Calder Cup Playoffs.
On behalf of all of our teams, thank you for your continuing support of the AHL.
Sincerely,
Scott Howson President & CEO | American Hockey League
The AHL is as proud as ever of its role as the top development league for nearly all of the players, executives, trainers, broadcasters and officials throughout the National Hockey League today. of our great fans have cheered on future superstars, Stanley Cup champions and Hockey Hall of Famers
This season is sure to be another memorable excitement of opening night to the pageantry All-Star Classic in Coachella Valley to the pure the Calder Cup Playoffs.
A TRADITION OF
Percentage of all NHL players in 2023-24 who were graduates of the AHL BY THE
Former AHL players who skated in the NHL last season
THE BEGINNINGS
Embarking on its 89th season in 2024-25, the American Hockey League is continuing a tradition of excellence that began in 1936 when the Canadian-American Hockey League joined with the International Hockey League to form what is today known as the AHL. Eight teams hit the ice that first season, representing Buffalo, Cleveland, New Haven, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Providence, Springfield and Syracuse.
Frank Calder, the National Hockey League’s president at the time, was instrumental in the forming of this new league, and his name would be given to its championship trophy. The first Calder Cup was won by the Syracuse Stars in 1937; the Hershey Bears captured their leaguebest 13th championship last spring.
From those roots, the American Hockey League has grown into a 32-team, coastto-coast league that provides fans with exciting, high-level professional hockey while preparing thousands of players, coaches, officials, executives, trainers, broadcasters and more for careers in the NHL.
AHL players who also played in the NHL in 2023-24
Former 1st- and 2nd-round NHL draft picks who skated in the AHL in 2023-24
L.
THE PLAYERS
In today’s National Hockey League nearly 90 percent of the players are AHL alumni, including 2023-24 Vezina Trophy winner Connor Hellebuyck, Lady Byng Trophy recipient Jaccob Slavin and Bill Masterton Trophy winner Connor
Ingram. The 2024 Stanley Cup champion Florida Panthers were stocked with AHL graduates including former league scoring champion Carter Verhaeghe and two-time AHL All-Star Brandon Montour.
During the 2023-24 season, a total of played in the National Hockey League. There were 349 players both leagues last year alone, and 251 former first- and second-round NHL draft picks in the AHL last season, including David Jiricek
Lukas Reichel
Kasper
Yaroslav Askarov
Clarke Cup Playoffs MVP Lapierre
THE LEGENDS
For nearly nine decades, the American Hockey League has been home to some of the greatest players in the history of our sport. In fact, there are 133 honored members of the Hockey Hall of Fame who have been affiliated with the AHL during their careers All-time greats from Milt Schmidt and Gump Worsley to Roberto Luongo and Martin St. Louis came through the AHL ranks and now find themselves enshrined in Toronto, and the coveted Calder Cup is inscribed with the names of legendary AHL alumni like Johnny Bower, Larry Robinson, Gerry Cheevers, Andy Bathgate, Tim Horton, Al Arbour, Emile Francis, Patrick Roy, Doug Harvey and Billy Smith.
THE COACHES
At the start of the 2024-25 season, the National Hockey League featured 22 head coaches who were former AHL bench bosses, including Paul Maurice of the 2024 Stanley Cup champion Florida Panthers and Kris Knoblauch of the Western Conference champion Edmonton Oilers.
Tampa Bay’s Jon Cooper, New Jersey’s Sheldon Keefe, San Jose’s Ryan Warsofsky, Colorado’s Jared Bednar, Washington’s Spencer Carbery and Seattle’s Dan Bylsma are also among the current NHL coaches who spent time in the American Hockey League before making the jump.
Through the Griffins’ long-running Charitable Goals program, local companies team up with Griffins players to help raise money for various charities. Every time the player scores a goal or makes a save, the company makes a donation toward a mutually agreed upon charity.
AHL DIRECTORY
EASTERN CONFERENCE
ATLANTIC DIVISION:
Bridgeport, Charlotte, Hartford, Hershey, Lehigh Valley, Providence, Springfield, Wilkes-Barre/Scranton
NORTH DIVISION: Belleville, Cleveland, Laval, Rochester, Syracuse, Toronto, Utica
BRIDGEPORT ISLANDERS
NHL Affiliation:: ........................ New York Islanders
Home Ice: Total Mortgage Arena (8,412)
General Manager: Chris Lamoriello
Head Coach: ......................................Rick Kowalsky
Entered AHL: .............................................2001-02
Calder Cups: None
Seasons in Playoffs: ................................... 10 of 21
2023-24 Record: .................25-38-7-2, 59 pts./.410 Website: .......................... bridgeportislanders.com
CHARLOTTE CHECKERS
NHL Affiliation: ............................. Florida Panthers
Home Ice: Bojangles’ Coliseum (8,500)
General Manager: Gregory Campbell
Head Coach: .................................. Geordie Kinnear
Entered AHL: .............................................2010-11
Calder Cups: One (2019)
Seasons in Playoffs: ..................................... 8 of 12
2023-24 Record: .................39-26-7-0, 85 pts./.590
Website: ............................. charlottecheckers.com
HARTFORD WOLF PACK
NHL Affiliation: .......................... New York Rangers
Home Ice: XL Center (15,635)
General Manager: ............................... Ryan Martin
Head Coach: ...................................... Grant Potulny
Entered AHL: .............................................1997-98
Calder Cups: One (2000)
Seasons in Playoffs: ................................... 17 of 25
2023-24 Record: .................34-28-7-3, 78 pts./.542 Website: ............................. hartfordwolfpack.com
HERSHEY BEARS
NHL Affiliation: ...................... Washington Capitals
Home Ice: Giant Center (10,500)
General Manager: ............................. Bryan Helmer
Head Coach: .........................................Todd Nelson Entered AHL: .............................................1938-39
Calder Cups: 13 (1947, 1958, 1959, 1969, 1974, 1980, 1988, 1997, 2006, 2009, 2010, 2023, 2024) Seasons in Playoffs: ................................... 71 of 84 2023-24 Record: ...............53-14-0-5, 111 pts./.771 Website: hersheybears.com
LEHIGH VALLEY PHANTOMS
NHL Affiliation: ......................... Philadelphia Flyers
Home Ice: ..................................PPL Center (8,420)
General Manager: Alyn McCauley
Head Coach: ......................................Ian Laperriere
Entered AHL: 1996-97 (as Philadelphia Phantoms) Calder Cups: .................................Two (1998, 2005) Seasons in Playoffs: 14 of 26 2023-24 Record: .................32-31-6-3, 73 pts./.507 Website: .............................. phantomshockey.com
PROVIDENCE BRUINS
NHL Affiliation: ................................. Boston Bruins
Home Ice: ............................ Dunkin’ Donuts Center Providence (11,273)
General Manager: Evan Gold
Head Coach: ................................... Ryan Mougenel
Entered AHL: .............................................1992-93
Calder Cups: .......................................... One (1999) Seasons in Playoffs: 25 of 30
2023-24 Record: .................42-21-6-3, 93 pts./.646 Website: ..............................providencebruins.com
SPRINGFIELD THUNDERBIRDS
NHL Affiliation: St. Louis Blues
Home Ice: .................... MassMutual Center (6,793)
General Manager: ............................Kevin Maxwell
Head Coach: ............................. Steve Konowalchuk
Entered AHL: 2016-17
Calder Cups: ................................................... None
Seasons in Playoffs: ....................................... 2 of 6
2023-24 Record: 30-37-3-2, 65 pts./.451 Website: springfieldthunderbirds.com
WILKES-BARRE/ SCRANTON PENGUINS
NHL Affiliation: .......................Pittsburgh Penguins Home Ice: ...............................Mohegan Sun Arena at Casey Plaza (7,500)
General Manager: .............................. Jason Spezza
Head Coach: ................................. Keith MacDonald
Entered AHL: 1999-00
Calder Cups: ................................................... None
Seasons in Playoffs: ................................... 19 of 23
2023-24 Record: .................39-24-8-1, 87 pts./.604 Website: wbspenguins.com
BELLEVILLE SENATORS
NHL Affiliation: .............................Ottawa Senators
Home Ice: .................................. CAA Arena (4,365)
General Manager: ............................ Ryan Bowness
Head Coach: David Bell
Entered AHL: .............................................2017-18
Calder Cups: ................................................... None
Seasons in Playoffs: 2 of 5
2023-24 Record: .................38-28-3-3, 82 pts./.569
Website: .................................... bellevillesens.com
ROCHESTER AMERICANS
NHL Affiliation: ................................ Buffalo Sabres
Home Ice: Blue Cross Arena at the Rochester War Memorial (10,662)
General Manager: ......................... Jason Karmanos
Head Coach: ..................................... Michael Leone
Entered AHL: 1956-57
Calder Cups: ......................... Six (1965, 1966, 1968, 1983, 1987, 1996)
Seasons in Playoffs: ................................... 49 of 66
2023-24 Record: 39-23-7-3, 88 pts./.611 Website: ............................................. amerks.com
CLEVELAND MONSTERS
NHL Affiliation: ................... Columbus Blue Jackets
Home Ice: Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse (18,277/9,447 lower bowl)
General Manager: .................................. Chris Clark
Head Coach: .................................Trent Vogelhuber
Entered AHL: 2007-08 (as Lake Erie Monsters)
Calder Cups: .......................................... One (2016)
Seasons in Playoffs: ..................................... 4 of 15
2023-24 Record: .................40-24-5-3, 88 pts./.611 Website: clevelandmonsters.com
LAVAL ROCKET
NHL Affiliation: ....................... Montreal Canadiens
Home Ice: ..................................Place Bell (10,043)
General Manager: ........................... John Sedgwick
Head Coach: Pascal Vincent Entered AHL: .............................................2017-18
Calder Cups: ................................................... None
Seasons in Playoffs: 2 of 5
2023-24 Record: .................33-31-6-2, 74 pts./.514
Website: ........................................ rocketlaval.com
THE ROAD TO THE CALDER CUP
SYRACUSE CRUNCH
NHL Affiliation: ..................... Tampa Bay Lightning
Home Ice: Upstate Medical University Arena at Onondaga County War Memorial (6,110)
General Manager: .................................Stacy Roest
Head Coach: ......................................Joel Bouchard
Entered AHL: 1994-95
Calder Cups: ................................................... None
Seasons in Playoffs: ................................... 18 of 28
2023-24 Record: .................39-24-4-5, 87 pts./.604 Website: syracusecrunch.com
A total of 23 teams will qualify for the AHL’s 2025 postseason, with five rounds of playoffs leading to the crowning of a Calder Cup champion.
The playoff field will include the top six finishers in the eight-team Atlantic Division, the top five finishers each in the seven-team North and Central Divisions, and the top seven teams in the 10-team Pacific Division.
TORONTO MARLIES
NHL Affiliation: Toronto Maple Leafs
Home Ice: .................... Coca-Cola Coliseum (7,851)
General Manager: .................................Ryan Hardy
Head Coach: ........................................ John Gruden
Entered AHL: 2005-06
Calder Cups: .......................................... One (2018)
Seasons in Playoffs: ................................... 13 of 17
2023-24 Record: 34-26-10-2, 80 pts./.556
Website: marlies.ca
UTICA COMETS
NHL Affiliation: New Jersey Devils
Home Ice: ...... Adirondack Bank Center at the Utica Memorial Auditorium (3,917)
General Manager: .......................... Dan MacKinnon
Head Coach: Kevin Dineen
Entered AHL: .............................................2013-14
Calder Cups: ................................................... None
Seasons in Playoffs: 5 of 9
2023-24 Record: 32-29-5-6, 75 pts./.521
Website: ...................................... uticacomets.com
First Round matchups will be best-ofthree series. The two highest seeds in the Atlantic, the three highest seeds in each of the North and Central, and the first-place team in the Pacific will receive byes into the best-of-five Division Semifinals, with the First Round winners re-seeded in each division. The Division Finals will also be best-of-five series, followed by best-ofseven Conference Finals and a best-ofseven Calder Cup Finals.
Rapids
AHL DIRECTORY
WESTERN CONFERENCE
PACIFIC DIVISION:
Abbotsford, Bakersfield, Calgary, Coachella Valley, Colorado, Henderson, Ontario, San Diego, San Jose, Tucson
CENTRAL DIVISION: Grand Rapids, Chicago, Iowa, Manitoba, Milwaukee, Rockford, Texas
ABBOTSFORD CANUCKS
NHL Affiliation: .........................Vancouver Canucks
Home Ice: ...................... Abbotsford Centre (7,073)
General Manager: Ryan Johnson
Head Coach: ................................. Manny Malhotra
Entered AHL: .............................................2021-22
Calder Cups: None
Seasons in Playoffs: ....................................... 3 of 3
2023-24 Record: .................40-25-5-2, 87 pts./.604
Website: .......................... abbotsford.canucks.com
BAKERSFIELD CONDORS
NHL Affiliation: .............................Edmonton Oilers
Home Ice: ............... Mechanics Bank Arena (8,751)
General Manager: Keith Gretzky
Head Coach: ........................................ Colin Chaulk Entered AHL: .............................................2015-16 Calder Cups: None Seasons in Playoffs: ....................................... 4 of 7 2023-24 Record: .................39-27-4-2, 84 pts./.583
........................... bakersfieldcondors.com
CALGARY WRANGLERS
NHL Affiliation: ............................... Calgary Flames
Home Ice: Scotiabank Saddledome (19,289)
General Manager: ................................ Brad Pascall
Head Coach: ............................................. Trent Cull
Entered AHL: 2022-23
Calder Cups: None
Seasons in Playoffs: ....................................... 2 of 2
2023-24 Record: .................35-28-6-3, 79 pts./.549 Website: calgarywranglers.com
COACHELLA VALLEY FIREBIRDS
NHL Affiliation: ................................Seattle Kraken
Home Ice: Acrisure Arena (10,087)
Asst. General Manager: .......................Ricky Olczyk
Head Coach: ....................................... Derek Laxdal
Entered AHL: 2022-23
Calder Cups: None
COLORADO EAGLES
NHL Affiliation: ........................ Colorado Avalanche Home Ice: Blue Arena (5,089) General Manager: ......................... Kevin McDonald Head Coach: .............................. Aaron Schneekloth
ONTARIO REIGN
Seasons in Playoffs: ....................................... 2 of 2
2023-24 Record: ...............46-15-6-5, 103 pts./.715 Website: cvfirebirds.com
HENDERSON SILVER KNIGHTS
NHL Affiliation: .....................Vegas Golden Knights
Home Ice: ............... The Dollar Loan Center (5,567)
General Manager: Tim Speltz
Head Coach: ........................................... Ryan Craig Entered AHL: .............................................2020-21
Calder Cups: None
Seasons in Playoffs: 1 of 3
2023-24 Record: .................28-36-3-5, 64 pts./.444
Website: .................... hendersonsilverknights.com
ONTARIO REIGN
NHL Affiliation: ........................... Los Angeles Kings
Home Ice: .............................. Toyota Arena (9,491)
General Manager: Richard Seeley
Head Coach: ........................................Marco Sturm
Entered AHL: .............................................2015-16
Calder Cups: None Seasons in Playoffs: 6 of 7
2023-24 Record: .................42-23-3-4, 91 pts./.632 Website: ..................................... ontarioreign.com
SAN DIEGO GULLS
SAN JOSE BARRACUDA
NHL Affiliation: San Jose Sharks
Home Ice: .............................Tech CU Arena (4,200)
General Manager: ....................................... Joe Will
Head Coach: John McCarthy
Entered AHL: .............................................2015-16
Calder Cups: ................................................... None
Seasons in Playoffs: ....................................... 4 of 7
2023-24 Record: 24-34-10-4, 62 pts./.431 Website: .......................................sjbarracuda.com
TUCSON ROADRUNNERS
NHL Affiliation: Utah Hockey Club
Home Ice: .............................. Tucson Arena (6,521)
General Manager: ............................ John Ferguson
Head Coach: Steve Potvin
Entered AHL: .............................................2016-17
Calder Cups: ................................................... None
Seasons in Playoffs: ....................................... 3 of 6
2023-24 Record: 43-23-4-2, 92 pts./.639
Website: ........................... tucsonroadrunners.com
CHICAGO WOLVES
NHL Affiliation: ........................ Carolina Hurricanes
Home Ice: Allstate Arena (16,692)
General Manager: ...............................Darren Yorke
Head Coach: ......................................... Cam Abbott
Entered AHL: 2001-02
Calder Cups: Three (2002, 2008, 2022)
Seasons in Playoffs: ................................... 14 of 21
2023-24 Record: .................23-35-7-7, 60 pts./.417 Website: chicagowolves.com
IOWA WILD
NHL Affiliation: .............................. Minnesota Wild
Home Ice: Wells Fargo Arena (8,356)
General Manager: ........................... Matt Hendricks
Head Coach: ....................................... Brett McLean
Entered AHL: 2013-14
Calder Cups: None
Seasons in Playoffs: ....................................... 2 of 9
2023-24 Record: .................27-37-4-4, 62 pts./.431 Website: iowawild.com
GRAND RAPIDS GRIFFINS
NHL Affiliation: Detroit Red Wings
Home Ice: .......................Van Andel Arena (10,834)
General Manager: ............................Shawn Horcoff
Head Coach: Dan Watson
Entered AHL: .............................................2001-02
Calder Cups: .................................Two (2013, 2017) Seasons in Playoffs: ................................... 14 of 21
2023-24 Record: 37-23-8-4, 86 pts./.597
Website: ................................... griffinshockey.com
MANITOBA MOOSE
NHL Affiliation: .................................Winnipeg Jets
Home Ice: Canada Life Centre (7,808)
General Manager: ........................... Craig Heisinger
Head Coach: ..................................... Mark Morrison Entered AHL: 2001-02 (played through 2010-11; re-entered 2015-16)
Calder Cups: ................................................... None Seasons in Playoffs: ................................... 13 of 17 2023-24 Record: 34-35-2-1, 71 pts./.493
Website: ....................................moosehockey.com
MILWAUKEE ADMIRALS
NHL Affiliation: ........................ Nashville Predators
Home Ice: ............................ Panther Arena (9,450)
General Manager: Scott Nichol
Head Coach: ........................................... Karl Taylor
Entered AHL: .............................................2001-02
Calder Cups: One (2004)
Seasons in Playoffs: 18 of 21
2023-24 Record: .................47-22-2-1, 97 pts./.674 Website: ..........................milwaukeeadmirals.com
ROCKFORD ICEHOGS
NHL Affiliation: ....................... Chicago Blackhawks
Home Ice: ................................ BMO Center (5,895)
General Manager: Mark Bernard
Head Coach: ................................. Anders Sorensen
Entered AHL: .............................................2007-08
Calder Cups: None Seasons in Playoffs: 9 of 15
2023-24 Record: .................39-26-5-2, 85 pts./.590 Website: ............................................. icehogs.com
TEXAS STARS
NHL Affiliation: .....................................Dallas Stars
Home Ice: ......... H-E-B Center at Cedar Park (6,778)
General Manager: Scott White
Head Coach: ........................................ Neil Graham
Entered AHL: .............................................2009-10
Calder Cups: One (2014) Seasons in Playoffs: 10 of 13
2023-24 Record: .................33-33-4-2, 72 pts./.500
Website: ......................................... texasstars.com
Grand Rapids GRIFFINS
Since beginning their affiliation with the Detroit Red Wings in 2002, the Grand Rapids Griffins have sent more than 100 players to Hockeytown. Detroit’s current crop of Griffins alumni includes Michael Rasmussen, 2022 Calder Trophy recipient Moritz Seider, and captain Dylan Larkin.
DETROIT RED WINGS
TOP AFFILIATE: Grand Rapids Griffins • 23rd Season
ARENA: Little Caesars Arena • Seating Capacity: 19,515
CONTACT: (313) 471-7000 • detroitredwings.com
STANLEY CUPS: 1936, 1937, 1943, 1950, 1952, 1954, 1955, 1997, 1998, 2002, 2008
MANAGEMENT
EXECUTIVE VP/GENERAL MANAGER: Steve Yzerman
VP/HOCKEY OPERATIONS: Nicklas Lidstrom
ASSISTANT GENERAL MANAGERS: Shawn Horcoff, Kris Draper, Aaron Kahn
COACHING STAFF
HEAD COACH: Derek Lalonde
ASSISTANT COACHES: Bob Boughner, Alex Tanguay, Jay Varady
GOALTENDING COACH: Alex Westlund
VIDEO COORDINATOR: L J Scarpace
ASSISTANT VIDEO COORDINATOR: Jeff Weintraub
GRIFFINS WHO HAVE EARNED THEIR WINGS
Justin Abdelkader 2008-09
Adam Almquist 2013-14
Joakim Andersson 2011-12
Zach Aston-Reese 2023-24
Andreas Athanasiou 2015-16
Sean Avery 2002-03
Riley Barber 2021-22
Ryan Barnes 2003-04
Jonatan Berggren 2022-23
Tyler Bertuzzi 2016-17
Patrick Boileau 2002-03
Darryl Bootland 2003-04
Madison Bowey 2019-20
Mathias Brome 2020-21
Fabian Brunnstrom 2011-12
Mitch Callahan 2013-14
Jake Chelios 2018-19
Alex Chiasson 2022-23
Dennis Cholowski 2018-19
Ty Conklin 2011-12
Chris Conner 2011-12
Jared Coreau 2016-17
Kyle Criscuolo 2021-22
Austin Czarnik 2022-23
Danny DeKeyser 2013-14
Aaron Downey 2008-09
Patrick Eaves 2013-14
Simon Edvinsson 2022-23
Christoffer Ehn 2018-19
Matt Ellis 2006-07
Turner Elson 2021-22
Cory Emmerton 2010-11
Jonathan Ericsson 2007-08
Adam Erne 2022-23
Landon Ferraro 2013-14
Valtteri Filppula 2005-06
Martin Frk 2017-18
Luke Glendening 2013-14
Mark Hartigan 2007-08
Darren Helm 2007-08
Joe Hicketts 2017-18
Taro Hirose 2019-20
Jimmy Howard 2005-06
Filip Hronek 2018-19
Jiri Hudler 2003-04
Matt Hussey 2006-07
Michael Hutchinson 2023-24
Doug Janik 2009-10
Nick Jensen 2016-17
Tomas Jurco 2013-14
Jakub Kindl 2009-10
Tomas Kopecky 2005-06
Niklas Kronwall 2003-04
Marc Lamothe 2003-04
Josh Langfeld 2006-07
Dylan Larkin 2015-16
Brian Lashoff 2012-13
Brett Lebda 2005-06
Ville Leino 2008-09
Gustav Lindstrom 2019-20
Matt Lorito 2016-17
Matt Luff 2022-23
Joey MacDonald 2006-07
Donald MacLean 2005-06
Anthony Mantha 2015-16
Alexey Marchenko 2013-14
Darren McCarty 2007-08
Tom McCollum 2010-11
Dylan McIlrath 2018-19
Derek Meech 2006-07
Wade Megan 2018-19
Drew Miller 2016-17
Kevin Miller 2003-04
Mark Mowers 2003-04
Petr Mrazek 2012-13
Jan Mursak 2010-11
Anders Myrvold 2003-04
Alex Nedeljkovic 2022-23
Andrej Nestrasil 2014-15
Kris Newbury 2009-10
Tomas Nosek 2015-16
Gustav Nyquist 2011-12
Xavier Ouellet 2013-14
Chase Pearson 2021-22
Calvin Pickard 2019-20
Matt Puempel 2018-19
Teemu Pulkkinen 2013-14
Kyle Quincey 2005-06
Michael Rasmussen 2018-19
Dan Renouf 2016-17
Mattias Ritola 2007-08
Jamie Rivers 2003-04
Nathan Robinson 2003-04
Stacy Roest 2002-03
Robbie Russo 2016-17
Moritz Seider 2021-22
Riley Sheahan 2011-12
Brendan Smith 2011-12
Givani Smith 2019-20
Elmer Soderblom 2022-23
Ryan Sproul 2013-14
Garrett Stafford 2007-08
Ben Street 2016-17
Libor Sulak 2018-19
Evgeny Svechnikov 2016-17
Eric Tangradi 2015-16
Tomas Tatar 2010-11
Jordin Tootoo 2013-14
Dominic Turgeon 2017-18
Joe Veleno 2020-21
Jakub Vrana 2022-23
Jason Williams 2002-03
Luke Witkowski 2021-22
Filip Zadina 2018-19
* not including conditioning stints for Curtis Joseph (2003-04), Chris Osgood (2005-06), Manny Legace (2005-06), Chris Chelios (2008-09), Andreas Lilja (2009-10), Jonas Gustavsson (2012-13), Carlo Colaiacovo (2012-13), Stephen Weiss (2014-15), Gemel Smith (2021-22), Magnus Hellberg (2022-23) and Ville Husso (2023-24).
Photo credit: Getty Images
MARK YOUR CALENDAR 2024-25
OCT. 11
NOV. 24
Jake Engel Memorial Dog Game presented by Nestle Purina/ Brad “Dogg” Thompson Beard Chia Pet Giveaway presented by University of Michigan HealthWest
DEC. 1
Opening Night presented by Huntington Bank/Magnet Schedule Giveaway
OCT. 19
Calendar Giveaway presented by Fox Motors
NOV. 13
23rd Annual School Day Game presented by Consumers Credit Union/11 a.m. Start/Winning
NOV. 29
24th Annual Teddy Bear Toss Game presented by J&H Family
How Griff Stole Christmas presented by Centennial Securities/ Character Appearance/ Sebastian Cossa Bobblehead Giveaway
DEC. 3
16th Annual Tip-A-Griffin at Peppino’s, benefiting the Griffins Youth Foundation
NOV. 15
Military Appreciation Night presented by DTE/Camo Hooded T-Shirt Giveaway/Military Jersey Auction
DEC. 6
Ninth Annual Red Kettle Game presented by The Salvation Army/Red Kettle Jersey Auction
DEC. 22
Gridiron Griffins presented by Hope Network/Gridiron Griffins Jersey Auction
DEC. 31
27th Annual New Year’s Eve Celebration presented by Captain Morgan/Post-Game Fireworks/6 p.m. Start
JAN. 11
DC Superheroes Night presented by Michigan
First Credit Union/Batman
Bobblehead Giveaway/ Character Appearances
JAN. 18
JAN. 18-19
20th Annual Great Skate
Winterfest at Rosa Parks Circle, benefiting the Griffins Youth Foundation
FEB. 1
Princess Night presented by Lake Michigan Credit Union/ Character Appearances/ Pre-Game Tea Party
FEB. 17
18th Annual Griffins & Sled Wings Sled Hockey Game at Griff’s IceHouse at Belknap Park, benefiting the Grand Rapids Sled Wings and the Griffins Youth Foundation
FEB. 23
Dino Night presented by Acrisure/Adult Dino Night Jersey Giveaway/Dino Night Jersey Auction
Mental Health Awareness & Sensory-Friendly Game presented by Comerica Bank/
Mental Health & SensoryFriendly Jersey Auction/Simon Edvinsson Flying Toasters
Bobblehead Giveaway
MARCH 1
Star Wars Night presented by DTE/Character Appearances
MARCH 10
11th Annual Hockey, Hops & Hope, benefiting Easterseals
MARCH 14
13th Annual Purple Community Game presented by Van Andel Institute/Purple Jersey Auction
MARCH 22
Beer City Hockey Night presented by Adventure Credit Union/Beer City Hockey Jersey
Auction/Beer
City Hockey Hat
Giveaway/ 8 p.m. Start
APRIL 12
Fan Appreciation Night presented by Huntington Bank
CHECKPROMOTIONS OUT THESE SEASON-LONG
$2 BEERS AND $2 HOT DOGS
Every Friday, enjoy $2 domestic drafts and $2 hot dogs from 6-8 p.m., at select stands while supplies last.
MILITARY NIGHTS
Every home game, current members of our military can purchase up to four Upper Level Faceoff or Crease tickets for $16 each, four Upper Level Center Ice tickets for $19 each or four Lower Level Faceoff tickets for $23 each with a valid military ID. The offer also extends to veterans who present a VA ID or discharge papers.
COLLEGE DISCOUNT
College students can buy online using their school .edu email address or show their ID at every Friday game to purchase an Upper Level Faceoff or Crease ticket for $16, an Upper Level Center Ice ticket for $19, or a Lower Level Faceoff ticket for $23. Limit one ticket per ID if purchasing in-person. Visit griffinshockey.com/college to purchase College Night tickets and sign up for text alerts.
FREE RIDE FRIDAY ON THE RAPID
Ride the Rapid to and from any Friday game and enjoy a complimentary fare by showing your ticket to that night’s game. Visit ridetherapid.org for schedule information, routes and maps.
WINNING WEDNESDAYS
Presented by Michigan First Credit Union, every time the Griffins win at home on Wednesday, each fan in attendance will receive a free ticket to the next Wednesday
game. To redeem a Winning Wednesday ticket, please visit the box office following the Winning Wednesday game, The Zone during normal business hours, or the Van Andel Arena box office prior to the next Wednesday game beginning at 5:30 p.m. Fans who exchange their Winning Wednesday ticket at The Zone on a non-game day will receive 20% off the purchase of one item (excluding jerseys). One discount per person present.
LIBRARY NIGHTS
For all Wednesday and Sunday games, fans can present their Grand Rapids Public Library card or Kent District Library card at the Van Andel Arena box office on the night of the game or at The Zone anytime during the store’s regular business hours to purchase an Upper Level Faceoff ticket for $18 (regularly $24), an Upper Level Center Ice ticket for $21 (regularly $27), or a Lower Level Faceoff ticket for $25 (regularly $30). Limit four tickets per card per person, subject to availability.
FRIENDS & FAMILY 4-PACKS
These packs are available for all Saturday games during the 2024-25 season and include four or more game tickets, and $20 or more in concession cash. Visit griffinshockey.com/f4p or call (616) 774-4585 ext. 2.
SUNDAY IS FUN DAY
For all Sunday games, enjoy $1 small Pepsi drinks and $1 small ice cream cups from 3-5 p.m., while supplies last.
PEPSI READING GOALS
Children with Griff’s Reading Goals bookmarks who have completed the required three hours of reading can redeem their bookmark for two free Upper Level tickets to any of the following games: Bookmark #1 – Nov. 24, Nov. 29, Dec. 1, and Dec. 22; Bookmark #2 – Feb. 19, Feb. 23, March 12, and April 2.
POST-GAME OPEN SKATES
Bring your skates to the rink and take to the ice for a post-game open skate on Oct. 11, Dec. 31, Feb. 21, and April 12. As a reminder, Van Andel Arena has a no-bag policy, but security will allow fans to use bags to bring in their skates.
POST-GAME AUTOGRAPH SESSIONS
Select players will sign autographs from the Griffins’ bench after the games on Oct. 18, Jan. 11 and Feb. 1.
APPLIED INNOVATION ISLAND
Presented by Applied Innovation, this section, located on the terrace level above section 118, provides the best seats in the house for groups of up to 30 people, with La-Z-Boy chairs and an array of unprecedented amenities. Call (616) 744-4585 ext. 4.
FIRE & ICE
Down-to-earth Sebastian Cossa is working hard to harness all the elements needed to become a starting goaltender in the National Hockey League.
Story
photos by Mark Newman
Sebastian Cossa grew up playing hockey in Fort McMurray, Alberta, because there wasn’t much else to do. Options were limited.
“Dig a hole. Hit your head against the wall. Pick your nose,” laughs Cossa, who moved to the capital of Canada’s burgeoning tar sands industry when he was a little boy. In the hinterlands of the country’s western prairies, you grew up playing hockey or football because, well, that’s what you did if you didn’t want to become bored to death.
You might think fishing could have been a possibility for someone living 600 miles north of the U.S. border, but Cossa suggests you think again. “There’s the Athabasca River, which is not too pretty,” he said. “You’re not eating a single fish you catch out of there.”
The river cuts through the heart of the oil sands deposit, and traces of the heavy oil are readily observed on the river banks. Historically, the indigenous Cree and Dene aboriginal peoples used bitumen residue to waterproof their canoes.
“There are two or three lakes in the area, but they’re a couple of hours away,” Cossa continued. “There are two golf courses, which are nice and where my parents played five or six times a week, but other than that, there’s not much.”
It was, in fact, the oil sands that led Gianni and Sandie Cossa to take Sebastian and his older brother
Nicholas to Alberta in the first place. They left the residential community of Stoney Creek in Hamilton, Ontario, before Gianni’s work as an occupational health and safety professional brought him to the Fort McMurray area.
The blue-collar roots go back more than a generation. Cossa’s late grandfather, Pietro, emigrated from the Italian island of Sardinia to Germany, where he labored for six years before coming to Canada. Cossa’s nonno found work as a miner in the Red Lake area of northern Ontario before eventually settling his family in Sarnia, across the Michigan border.
Cossa, who stands 6-foot-7 today in his stocking feet, was always tall for his age. So he naturally gravitated to sports as a boy, except he never played organized basketball, even though he was already over six feet tall at the beginning of his teens.
He started skating at a young age and was already playing goalie by the time he was seven or eight.
“During my second year of atom hockey, we had three goalies to start the season and we were kind of rotating each game,” Cossa recalled. “By Christmas, the other two quit being goalies because they didn’t like it, so I was the one who stuck with it.”
Curiously, Cossa can’t recall what drew him to the position. Contrary to others who play between the pipes, it was not the mask or goalie pads that
Cossa hopes to carry a heavy workload for the Griffins during the 2024-25 season.
provided the attraction. “Honestly, I don’t remember too much, but it was something different and I remember being pretty good at it,” he said.
Cossa was born in 2002, so the heyday of Edmonton goalies Grant Fuhr and Andy Moog had long passed, and he wasn’t an Oilers fan anyway. His hockey hero was farther east, even farther than the city of Toronto.
“My whole family’s from Ontario, so they were big Leaf fans, but my favorite goalie growing up was Carey Price,” said Cossa, name-checking the winningest goalie in Montreal Canadiens history. “Price was definitely my idol growing up.
“I would spend hours just watching the way he played, searching for videos on YouTube to watch how he practiced, the way he moved in the net, and how smooth everything was. I watched him a lot.”
But Cossa had his eye on other netminders as well, including Curtis Joseph, who retired with the most career wins (454) of any goaltender in NHL history who never reached the Stanley Cup Final.
“I actually have one of his old game-used sticks in my bedroom,” he said. “A family friend knew someone who somehow got it for me. The stick still has the beat-up tape on it. If I weighed the stick, it’s probably three times heavier than the stick I use now.”
Cossa and his brother were on the ice at an early age, even though their father didn’t learn to skate until he was 42, eventually becoming a youth hockey referee. Coming late to the game didn’t stop his father, however, from imparting his wisdom in a heartfelt attempt to mold his son into the best that he could be.
“Looking back, it’s funny now because he never played the sport, but his biggest thing was that whenever I got beat top shelf, when I was 8, 9, or 10, he always wanted me to play straight ‘80s or ‘90s standup style.
“That was his big thing. ‘Don’t go down! Don’t go down! Stand up! Stand up!’ He must have watched some YouTube videos. Even though he didn’t know hockey that much, he was always trying his best to coach me. Both my mom and dad were very supportive.
“My mom meant everything,” he continued. “I wouldn’t be the person I am today without her. She was always in my corner, and she still helps me daily, giving me all the tools that I need to be successful. My parents have always been unbelievable.”
Growing up, Cossa also tried soccer and Taekwondo, but football was his other sport. He played in a travel program in Fort McMurray. “I was probably the biggest kid on the team and they were
Cossa was the 15th overall pick in the 2021 NHL Entry Draft.
like, ‘Protect the quarterback.’ So I played center on offense and linebacker on defense. I’m a bit lankier now, so I don’t know if I’d be able to stay with those guys now, but it was fun at the time. I probably stopped playing football when I was around 12.”
That’s about the same time his father ceded his coaching efforts to the professionals. Cossa started working with Mike Brodeur, a distant relative of Hockey Hall of Fame goaltender Martin Brodeur and a journeyman who was selected by the Chicago Blackhawks in the 2003 NHL Entry Draft and played a couple of seasons in the National Hockey League with the Ottawa Senators.
“As a big body who wasn’t that agile or that coordinated, he played a crucial part in hammering down the technique part, which is big for a younger guy,” said Cossa, who worked with Brodeur roughly from the time he was 12 until the age of 14.
It was during that time that Cossa and his family were confronted with the life-altering experience of the largest wildfire evacuation in Alberta’s history. More than 88,000 residents were forced to evacuate their homes before flames destroyed approximately 2,400 homes and buildings.
With an estimated damage of C$9.9 billion, the Fort McMurray wildfire was the costliest disaster in Canadian history.
Cossa and his family had attended a spring hockey tournament in Edmonton the weekend before the fire, which eventually spread across 1.5 million acres before it was fully extinguished three months later.
“As we were driving back, we saw the smoke because it’s a 4-1/2 hour drive from Edmonton to Fort McMurray,” he recalled. “There are no other cities up there – it’s just a two-lane highway all the way up. Seeing the smoke, it was obviously something we’d have to keep an eye on what was happening.
“We heard rumblings about a possible evacuation, so we packed some suitcases and slept the first night being a little nervous about getting a knock at the door in the middle of the night and being told that we had to get out of there.”
Even so, Cossa still went to school, wondering what might happen.
“I remember leaving lunch and looking out and all you saw was this red and black sky. It was something that I had never seen before,” he said. “I remember when we got back in class, kids were running around, crying, and screaming and stuff. I remember kids puking in the hallways. It was pretty crazy.
“Our school was grades 7 through 12, so you had a range of emotions, but parents started coming to pick up their kids because it was obvious we were going to evacuate. It was a crazy day, for sure.”
His family headed for Highway 63, the main road
in and out of the city.
“It’s only north or south, so we tried going north first, but we couldn’t find anything because, with no hotels, the only place to stay is at the sites [work settlements] for the oil sands,” Cossa recalled.
“We drove north for three or four hours but the traffic was insane. My brother had heard that they had opened the highway south. We ended up going back through the city toward Edmonton. What usually is a 4-1/2 to 5-hour drive took us 15-17 hours, which seemed like a ridiculous amount of time.”
“Once we reached Edmonton – my mom has a sister who lives there – we stayed there for maybe a night or two before we headed to Calgary, where her other sister lives. We ended up staying in Calgary for three months.”
Cossa was fortunate to be able to make the most of a disastrous situation. During his family’s time of evacuation, he attended Edge School, a private school in Rocky View County, just west of Calgary. Edge School adheres to a three-sphere philosophy –academics, athletics, and character development – to prepare students for either post-secondary education or a career in their chosen sport.
“It’s similar to a prep school and they took in all the Fort McMurray refugees, which was great for me,” he said. “We waited three months to go back. We might have been able to go sooner but there were restrictions – you weren’t allowed to use water and grocery stores were still low on supplies because everything gets shipped up there from Edmonton.”
“The fire came within two blocks from our house. Still, there was a lot of smoke damage, so we ended up throwing out almost everything. It could have been worse. I knew a lot of people who lost their homes, including Mike Brodeur.”
Meanwhile, Cossa continued to make progress as a budding goaltender worth watching. At age 13, he started billeting to play AAA hockey in Fort Saskatchewan, a city just 16 miles northwest of Edmonton. He would eventually begin working with Kurtis Mucha, the Edmonton Oil Kings’ goalie development coach since 2015 and a goalie guru with whom Cossa still skates every summer.
Scouts began to take notice of the gawky goaltender who was slowly but surely shaping into the type of puck stopper around which an organization could build a winning team.
During his 2016-17 season with the Fort Saskatchewan Rangers, he was the top goaltender in his U15 league. Cossa posted a 1.80 goals-against average and a .934 save percentage in 19 games played, eventually earning the league’s Most Valuable Player of the Year award.
He was selected in the second round of the 2017
Excited by the potential that Cossa had shown in junior, the Red Wings traded three draft picks to Dallas to move up to select him.
WHL Bantam Draft by the Edmonton Oil Kings but played two more seasons in Fort Saskatchewan before graduating to the Western Hockey League, where he would post rather incredible numbers.
During his three years with the Oil Kings, Cossa compiled a record of 71-16-7. “I was lucky,” Cossa said. “We had some really good teams while I was there.”
It was not all smooth sailing, however. In March 2020, the WHL announced the cancellation of playoffs due to the COVID-19 pandemic, a disappointing end to what had been a promising season for the Oil Kings.
A month later, a 25-kilometer ice jam near Fort McMurray caused rivers to burst their banks and threaten the downtown core.
“We were lucky again in that our home was safe, but the biggest worry for us was the bridges,” he said. “The water kept rising, and if the bridges flooded, we would be stranded without a way to access downtown or travel south to exit the city.”
On a positive front, the extenuating circumstances of the coronavirus allowed Cossa to sleep in his own bed and enjoy his mom’s cooking during a time that was trying for many families.
The time away from the ice gave him a chance to refocus his energies and, for the first time in his
young hockey career, recognize his potential.
Cossa proved to be nearly unbeatable during his second season with the Oil Kings, leading into the NHL Entry Draft. He was 17-1-1 with a 1.57 goalsagainst average and .941 save percentage during the shortened 2021 season.
He was delighted when the Red Wings selected him with the 15th overall pick in the 2021 NHL Draft, knowing Detroit had traded the team’s first-round (23rd overall), second-round (48th overall), and fifth-round (138th overall) selections in exchange for the rights to the Dallas Stars’ first-round pick.
“Draft night is pretty crazy because you have no idea where you’re going,” he said. “Every time a pick comes in, you think, ‘Well, I think I had a good interview with them. Are they looking for a goalie? Do they even want a goalie?’ You really have no idea.”
He became the first WHL goaltender to be selected in the first round since his hero, Carey Price, in 2005. Coincidentally, Cossa retains the same agent (The Sports Corporation’s Gerry Johannson) as Price, who remains on the Canadiens’ Long Term Injured Reserve (LTIR) list.
Cossa finished his junior hockey career with one more banner year. He was 33-9-3 with a 2.28 goals-against average and .913 save percentage
during the 2021-22 regular season, then went 16-3 in the playoffs to lead the Oil Kings to the WHL championship.
Although the Oil Kings later got knocked out of the round-robin portion of the Memorial Cup tournament, Cossa looks back at the year as an important one for his development.
“We had an unbelievable year,” he said. “It was a big year for my development because I hadn’t seen a lot of playoffs until that point. We were second in the conference my first year but then Covid hit, and my second year we played a shortened season, facing only interdivisional teams.
“Not seeing any playoffs previously, it was big to see how I would deal with it. With heightened emotions – heightened everything, actually – it was good to know how I would respond if a game went sideways. And while there weren’t many, I thought I handled it well. I learned a lot of things and I was really happy with my play.”
Cossa had the option of returning for one more year of junior hockey, but with little to prove at that level he decided to begin his pro career.
“I knew I didn’t want to go back to junior,” he said. “No matter what, I wanted to turn pro and get playing games and get used to the pro schedule, not to mention the speed and skill of the game at that level.”
Cossa won his first pro start, making 21 saves to help the Griffins beat Milwaukee 3-2 at Van Andel Arena on Oct. 19, 2022. But everything came apart in his next two starts on the road.
“I was a little shaky in my first game, but we won, so I was pretty happy with it,” he said. “But I think the speed of the game caught up with me. The pace being a lot faster, you start overcompensating. At that point, you’re trying to do too much and then they beat you five-hole.
“Sometimes it’s just not your night. But when you look up and you see they’ve scored four goals on eight shots, it can be an eye-opener.”
While Cossa had no illusions of coasting into an NHL job, he admits that his early struggles at the AHL level shook his confidence.
“I realized that it wasn’t going to be easy,” he said. “I knew I was not going to walk in and be playing in the NHL in one year. That’s not how it works. You have to put in the work and you’re going to have to get after it.”
Cossa went back to the ECHL’s Toledo Walleye, where he was able to regain his confidence. After a slow start, he helped the Walleye build a 22-game winning streak that extended into the third round of the Kelly Cup Playoffs, a new ECHL record for regular season and postseason combined.
He credits Phil Osaer, Red Wings head of goaltending development, and then-Walleye head coach Dan Watson with getting his play back on track.
“They were good with making me feel comfortable,” he said. “They have an open-door policy where you can go in and talk to them whenever you want, which helps a lot. It takes a little bit of the weight off your back.
“They’ve played, so they’ve been where you are, so you try and ask questions. They helped with the transition because it’s a big transition from one level to the next. You can have those conversations where you have a good dialogue and it makes you feel good to know that you can talk whenever you feel it’s necessary.”
So there was a real sense of relief this past season when Cossa and Watson were back together again, this time in Grand Rapids after the Red Wings promoted both men to the AHL, where they hoped to find the same winning formula for the Griffins.
Cossa won only three of his first 10 starts in 202324, but his fortunes, along with those of his Griffins teammates, changed dramatically after Christmas. After winning two of his first three post-holiday starts, Cossa put together a franchise-record streak of 19 consecutive games with the team earning at least one point (13-0-6).
“For me, it’s so much about confidence,” he said. “When you start winning four or five games in a row and the team’s feeling it – the vibes in the locker room are really good – it’s easy to come to the rink every night. It’s almost like you come to the rink knowing you’re going to win, which helps your confidence when you go down a goal. There’s no doubt you can come back and win, which is huge.”
Cossa felt he benefited from the tutelage of Griffins goaltending coach Roope Koistinen, who came to Grand Rapids last season from Finland, where he had worked with several high-profile NHL prospects.
“Me and Roope really hit it off,” Cossa said. “It was a big change for him, too, coming from Finland and the big ice, but our relationship grew a lot during the season. He knew how to pick the right spots, whether it was calming things down or picking things up, depending on the team’s schedule. He is good with that kind of stuff.”
Developing proper technique is important for any goalie, but ultimately it’s all about building confidence.
“If you look around the league and all the different techniques – the different ways you can play the position – at the end of the day it comes down to the fact that your job is just to stop the puck. They
Cossa was 22-9-9 with a 2.41 goals-against average and .913 save percentage last season.
don’t care how you do it.
“Obviously, they want it to be as smooth as possible and they want you to set yourself up in better positions for second pucks and that kind of stuff, but if you stop the puck, you’re going to have a job. So gaining confidence is massive.”
For his part, Cossa grew more confident in every facet of his game. “I’d say my entire game has evolved,” he said. “My skating is better, and working with Roope I would say my hands have gotten better, because that’s something they hammer with the Finnish guys. I think my play through traffic has gotten a lot better as well.
“I feel like I’m learning to use my size to its full advantage. I’m setting myself up in a good spot, being square to the puck, and knowing how to have good depth. With my size, I don’t need to be playing at the top of the crease, for example.
“It’s just figuring out all those little tweaks.”
Last season, Cossa enjoyed sharing the Griffins’ goaltending duties with veteran Michael Hutchinson, who came to Grand Rapids with 150-plus games of NHL experience.
“Hutch was like my second goalie coach last year,” he said. “He had an unbelievable attitude the entire year. He’d push me in practice, but he’d be the first guy to come up to me after a game, good or bad.
“We roomed together on the road and it was like he was always looking out for me all year. Even though we have different styles, it was good to have him there to chitter-chatter about our games. I was really happy to have him as my goalie partner.”
With the coming season setting up to be another stepping stone to the NHL, Cossa had a busy summer.
On June 22, he wed his longtime sweetheart, Emerson. “We got married in the backyard of her parents’ home in Fort Saskatchewan with just 16 guests,” he said. “In two years, we’re going to go to Italy and have a little ceremony there.”
He also spent a lot of time working on his explosiveness, pushing his reaction time and quickness. “I’m only 21, so honestly I still don’t think I have fully grown into my body,” he said. “With the amount of speed on the ice, if I can move faster as a big guy, it’s only going to help me.”
Ultimately, he would like to push for the promotion that he hopes will eventually come.
“My goal is to make it a hard decision for the Wings to keep me down here,” he said. “Overall, the work I’ve put in and the improvement I’ve shown, I feel very confident. My only worry right now is to do what I can control. I want to play a lot of games and win a lot of games and see what happens.”
Antti Tuomisto continues to head in the right direction toward his goal of being an NHL defenseman.
TAKING THE NEXT STEP
Story and photos by Mark Newman
Antti Tuomisto is following in the footsteps of his father. And while their hockey careers have mirrored each other relatively speaking, the son hopes his path ultimately takes him far beyond what his dad ever dreamed.
Growing up in Pori, Finland, Tuomisto was almost destined to play hockey. As a boy, he tried other sports, including soccer, but it was skating where he felt he was in his element, a feeling undoubtedly intensified by the awareness that his father had played.
“I don’t know what age I was, probably 4-ish, but I remember going with my dad to the outside rink,” he said. “We walked there in the winter and there was a lot of snow. I can’t remember much about what we did, but it was the first time I skated. I remember that.”
His father, Petri, was only a few years removed from pro hockey, having played as a left-handed shooting defenseman in Finland and France. He became a school principal after starting his posthockey career as a physical education teacher.
“He didn’t push me to play defense,” Tuomisto recalled. “When I was younger, he tried to get me to play a little forward, to try different positions, but I think I always wanted to be a defenseman. It just felt natural.”
Tuomisto developed a right-handed shot, the mirror image of his father, who preached the importance of skating. His father also prioritized school, which was fitting given his dad’s profession and the fact that his mother was a special education teacher.
“Education was important to them and obviously they could help me with school when I was younger because they know so much about it,” Tuomisto said.
In the same way, his father was able to teach him the finer points of hockey.
“I think he pushed me, not in a way where I had to do something, but more as far as encouraging me to do better,” Tuomisto said. “He tried to give me advice and do whatever was best for me. He helped me any way he could.”
As a teen, Tuomisto was developing skills that drew the attention of scouts. He became known for making a good first pass with accuracy while possessing a powerful point shot that created scoring chances. His strong skating and size (6-5, 205) would make him hard to knock off the puck.
So when it came time to decide where to take his talents after being selected in the second round (35th overall) of the 2019 NHL Entry Draft, Tuomisto followed the lead of his father, who played at the University of Alaska-Anchorage from 1992-1995.
Tuomisto was selected in the second round (35th overall) of the 2019 NHL Entry Draft by the Red Wings.
Tuomisto launched his career by coming to play college hockey from Finland, just like his father had nearly three decades earlier.
“He might have planted the seed in the way that going to North America was an option for me,” Tuomisto said. “I can’t remember when we first talked about it, but it was something that he helped me with, too.”
Close to a dozen colleges inquired about the big defenseman, who narrowed his visits to MinnesotaDuluth and the University of Denver. He said his father was influential but ultimately allowed him to decide.
“He talked about how you’re not going to find the same experience playing in Finland but also the upsides and downsides [of college hockey],” Tuomisto said. “He told me a little bit about the experience of everyday life in college and what being a student-athlete is like. Maybe the biggest thing he said is that it’s a great experience.”
Tuomisto decided on Denver, where two of the team’s assistant coaches, Dallas Ferguson and Tavis MacMillan, had played for the University of AlaskaFairbanks at the same time his father was guarding the blueline for the University of Alaska-Anchorage.
“They remembered playing against my dad,” he said. “It didn’t influence me going to Denver. I think it was more just a funny coincidence.”
He headed to Denver under less-than-ideal
circumstances. With the COVID-19 pandemic at full strength, his classes were remote and team practices were highly restricted. All the lockdowns made the transition to a new country even more difficult.
“Coming from Finland and not knowing anyone, there was a little culture shock,” he said. “Even though I had visited the U.S. a couple of times –we had been to Florida for vacation and I went to Canada for a tournament with the under-17 national team – it was still different.
“Because of Covid restrictions, the hardest part was not meeting people, because that helps you get used to things and gives you that feeling that you belong. The only thing we couldn’t do was be with other people.”
Playing hockey in a bubble was less than ideal for a young player trying to find his feet.
“There were 2-3 months where we didn’t even play and when we finally did, we had small groups of five or six guys to workout or skate, so we didn’t even spend time with the whole team,” he said. “It was the same thing with classes. We were not in-person with classes, which made things pretty difficult.
“I missed my friends and family, especially that first year when I was nine months away from home. That it was the first time I was away from home
made it even more difficult to adjust to everything.”
Nevertheless, Tuomisto found he liked playing on the smaller ice surfaces of North America.
“I enjoyed playing there because the game is a little more fast-paced on the smaller ice,” said Tuomisto, who added that Denver’s higher altitude did not prove to be a detriment to his play. “There is a difference but you get used to it quickly.”
His second year at Denver was one to remember. Joined by future Griffins teammates Carter Mazur and Shai Buium, Tuomisto and the rest of the Pioneers went 31-9-1 on the way to winning the NCAA National Championship.
“We went all the way, which was pretty unbelievable because I couldn’t have imagined it when we started,” he said. “We were good in the beginning, but as the season went on, we kept getting better and better.”
He admits that, in some ways, it felt similar to his first season since all the coronavirus restrictions had been lifted. “It was nicer in a way because it was a ‘normal’ year, and even though it was my second year, it felt like a first year because I hadn’t experienced some of the stuff as a result of Covid.”
After winning the title, Tuomisto made the difficult decision to return home and play in
Finland’s top pro league.
“It was difficult because we just had won the championship,” he said. “It felt weird because we had just won and then you’re thinking maybe you should try for another. Looking back I think it was a good decision and the best for my development as a player.”
He felt the benefits outweighed the negatives.
“Going back to the bigger rinks maybe was not good thinking for playing in the NHL and North America, but I felt playing in a tougher league against men in a different role and possibly getting more playing time would be good for me.”
Tuomisto played a team-leading 60 games for TPS Turku during the 2022-23 season. He topped all defensemen with 20 points, tallying five goals and 15 assists, as he made the most of his increased ice time.
He also benefited from the guidance of two long-time NHLers: Turku assistant coach Sami Salo and Red Wings European player development manager Niklas Kronwall, both of whom played 15 NHL seasons.
“They were awesome,” he said. “I tried to get as many tips and advice from Sami Salo as possible and he helped me a lot. I was in contact with Nik Kronwall a lot during the season and he came over
Tuomisto (center) won an NCAA National Championship at Denver with future Griffins teammates (from left) Shai Buium and Carter Mazur.
Tuomisto is a powerful skater known for making a good first pass with accuracy.
from Sweden a couple of times to skate with me, and that also really helped me.”
A year of pro hockey helped prepare Tuomisto for his arrival in Grand Rapids, where he hopes to prove that the Red Wings made the right choice when the organization used the 35th overall pick to select him in the second round in 2019.
Tuomisto was thrilled when he heard his name called.
“It was awesome,” he said. “I was surprised to be taken so early in the second draft day. Obviously, with the Wings being an Original Six team and with all the history, I was excited to join a great organization like Detroit.”
The combination of college hockey and playing pro in Finland aided Tuomisto’s adjustment to the American Hockey League.
“It took me a little time but not too long,” he said. “I think I got better during the season and I was happy where I was at the end of the season, and I hope now that I can continue getting better and better.”
He felt his confidence grow as every month passed.
“Before the season, I didn’t know what to expect coming to North America. I had never seen an AHL
game, so I had no idea what to expect. Once I got used to the feel of the game, my confidence grew and things became a little easier that way.”
Tuomisto worked closely with Griffins assistant coach Brian Lashoff, watching video as well as doing extensive on-ice work.
“When I’m playing well, I’m getting pucks on net, using my shot, breaking the puck out with a good first pass, and defending well by using my size,” he said. “With my size [6-5, 210], I think that’s what I need to do if I want to get to the next level.”
Like many of his Griffins teammates, Tuomisto felt he got stronger deeper into the season.
“Every day, week in and week out, I kept working on those little things,” he said. “When you just do the right things, I feel my offense will pick up at some point. I would like to contribute even more offensively and just be better overall.”
He is anxious for his second season in Grand Rapids. Considering the number of young players in their second and third seasons, he feels strongly that the team has real playoff potential, and that’s a good feeling.
“Winning,” he said, “is always more fun.”
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2024 - 25 GRAND RAPIDS GRIFFINS ROSTER
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from the biggest of the big, to the littlest of the little.
Whenever you shop Meijer, you help support the Grand Rapids Griffins and hundreds of local sports teams across the Midwest.
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MARCO KASPER
Forward
6-1, 195 lbs.
Born: 4/8/04
Klagenfurt, Austria
BROGAN RAFFERTY Defenseman
6-1, 198 lbs.
Born: 5/28/95
West Dundee, Ill.
WILLIAM LAGESSON Defenseman
6-2, 211 lbs.
Born: 2/22/96
Gothenburg, Sweden
JAKUB RYCHLOVSKY
Forward
5-10, 181 lbs.
Born: 8/7/01
Vrchlabi, Czechia
93
43 37 5 20 4 81 65 11 92 21 25
JOE SNIVELY
Forward
5-9, 176 lbs.
Born: 1/1/96
Fairfax, Va.
22
WILLIAM WALLINDER Defenseman
6-4, 204 lbs.
Born: 7/28/02
Solleftea, Sweden
ELMER SODERBLOM
Forward
6-8, 255 lbs.
Born: 7/5/01
Gothenburg, Sweden
AMADEUS LOMBARDI
Forward
5-11, 175 lbs.
Born: 6/5/03 Aurora, Ont.
GABRIEL SEGER
Forward
6-4, 213 lbs.
Born: 11/15/99
Uppsala, Sweden
ANTTI TUOMISTO Defenseman
6-5, 210 lbs.
Born: 1/20/01 Pori, Finland
CARTER MAZUR
Forward
6-1, 178 lbs.
Born: 3/28/02 Jackson, Mich.
DOMINIK SHINE
Forward
5-11, 180 lbs.
Born: 4/18/93
Detroit, Mich.
EEMIL VIRO Defenseman
6-1, 188 lbs.
Born: 4/3/02 Vantaa, Finland
Dependable and reliably consistent, former Griffin Tomas Nosek is the type of player that any successful team can employ.
Story by Mark Newman
ALWAYS A WINNER
Ever since he was an integral part of the Griffins’ 2017 Calder Cup championship, Tomas Nosek has found himself in demand as a two-way forward who can be an effective penalty killer and depth scorer.
From Grand Rapids to Detroit, Vegas, Boston, New Jersey, and now Florida, Nosek has been a proven winner. After leading the Griffins in playoff scoring during the team’s magical run, he has continued reinforcing his reputation as a clutch performer, often centering the third or fourth line for one of the NHL’s best teams.
And it all started in West Michigan.
“I have great memories of Grand Rapids,” Nosek said. “It’s a nice city, a clean city, and we loved it. It’s probably one of the best, smaller cities in the U.S. that I’ve ever been to. The fans were great, too, coming to our AHL games there. It was awesome.”
Nosek came here from Pardubice, Czech Republic, where he still makes his summer home with his wife, Eliška Nosková, and two sons: Patrik, 4, and Matias, 3. He remembers it being not an easy transition.
“It was a tough start, for sure, for someone coming from another country, speaking a new language, and all the challenges – plus a little different style of hockey, too,” he said. “But I think I settled in pretty good. People in the Detroit organization helped me, and I owe a big thank you to them and the people in Grand Rapids as well. It was awesome to be a part of that group.”
He credits his wife for helping him stay focused on the work he needed to do to reach his NHL goal.
“My wife has been on this journey with me the whole time,” he said. “She came in November [2014, the first year] and she’s been with me here since then,” he said. “Now we have two kids and a little family growing up.
“Her support meant a lot, especially at the start when I didn’t talk much English. It took me three or four months to get used to speaking a new language, and my friends and family weren’t there. It was just her.
“She became my best friend and we still have that kind of relationship. So she’s my wife and also my best friend as well. As they say, happy wife, happy life.”
And while they were not father figures, Nosek is thankful that he got the chance to play for two strong coaches with the Griffins: Jeff Blashill, who was his coach during his first season in Grand Rapids as well as in Detroit; and Todd Nelson, who he calls one of his favorite coaches.
“[Nelson would] always cheer you up and he knew his players very well –- when to push the buttons, and when not,” Nosek said. “I think he’s a great guy and a great coach, which is why he won another two Calder Cups after Grand Rapids. Those don’t just happen.”
Nosek said the Calder Cup team won with the perfect mix of youth and experience.
“We had a lot of experienced guys, older guys, and some great young guys, too,” he said. “It all came together. We had four solid lines. Everyone knew their jobs and everyone was chipping in. I think we had a pretty good group.”
Nosek was the leading playoff scorer on the Griffins’ 2017 Calder Cup championship team.
Nosek calls becoming a father “the best thing that has happened to me.”
He said the team also bought into a particular style of winning hockey.
“Todd gave us that system and let us play the hockey we played,” Nosek said. “One of the biggest reasons for our success was the power play. We played five forwards pretty much the whole year, which was something I never experienced. That’s one of the memories that has stuck with me.”
Nosek appeared in six games with the Red Wings during his second season (2015-16) in Grand Rapids. It enabled him to observe recent Hockey Hall of Fame inductee Pavel Datsyuk on a daily, up-close basis.
“Whenever I was up, I always loved to watch Datysuk, what he was doing on both sides of the ice,” Nosek said. “He was great at protecting the puck, but he also was the best at getting the puck away from you. I think watching him made me a better two-way player, that’s for sure. If I had to name one player who influenced me, it would probably be him.”
Nosek finished his third year playing in Detroit, appearing in the last 11 games of the NHL season with the Red Wings before returning to the Griffins for the playoffs. He scored his first NHL goal on March 28, 2017 in typical Nosek fashion, crashing the net after Ben Street attempted to tip a shot by Drew Miller.
“Everybody, I think, remembers their first goal,” he said. “I saw a rebound from the board coming toward the net and I just scooped up the puck in the crease and put it in. I will never forget that feeling.
“I like goals – it doesn’t matter how. Most of my
goals are scored around the net. It’s tough to score now when the goalies keep getting better. I think most of my goals are rebounds or picking up the garbage around the net.”
He was happy to return to the Griffins to help finish the team’s title run. In 19 playoff games, Nosek scored a team-leading 10 goals along with 12 assists and a team-best 22 points. While teammate Tyler Bertuzzi (9-10––19) took home the Jack A. Butterfield Trophy as the AHL Playoff MVP, Nosek got a reward of a different type.
The Vegas Golden Knights selected Nosek in the 2017 NHL expansion draft when the Red Wings left the young forward unprotected. While it presented a new opportunity for Nosek, it also meant leaving the organization where he had essentially grown up.
“At first, it was not bittersweet, it was just bitter,” he said. “I spent three years there. I made a lot of friends and memories, and I think I proved to myself that I could be the final spot on the Red Wings’ roster.
“I was there the last two months in the regular season, then they sent me down for the playoffs. I felt at that time that I already made myself almost an NHL player there. So my first thought was, oh my God, I have to start from the beginning again.
“Plus everybody was saying with Vegas, there’s not much hockey in this area, it will not be good. So my first thought was I am not happy.”
His perspective changed when he arrived in Las Vegas, where the ragtag collection of castoffs eventually
became known as the “Golden Misfits.”
“Since day one in Vegas, I knew it’s going to be good,” Nosek said. “The first season was one of the best you could have as a team. I experienced new guys coming together as a group and we were tight. And that’s what brought us almost to the top. Only Washington stopped us.”
Vegas defied the odds and made it to the Stanley Cup Final, losing in five games to the Washington Capitals. Despite the loss, the Golden Knights won 13 postseason games, breaking the record for the most wins by an expansion team in its first playoff appearance.
“It was a remarkable season that proved everybody wrong who said that Vegas doesn’t belong in the NHL,” he said. “As the season went on, everybody still didn’t believe us. I think that’s what brought us together even more.
“Even after 30 games, 40 games, everybody was still saying, ‘Oh, they’re not going to make the playoffs. They’re going to choke.’ And we played as a team and we had a great goalie in Mark Andre-Fleury. Every guy in the room was playing for each other and that’s what made us good. It was a special season.”
Nosek started the home portion of that first season in memorable fashion. He scored the first goal in the team’s inaugural home game at T-Mobile Arena on October 10, 2017, when Vegas was hosting the Arizona Coyotes in the second game of a home-
and-home series.
“At the time, I didn’t think much about it,” he said. “After the game, somebody told me, ‘You scored the first goal ever at T-Mobile Arena,’ and I thought, ‘cool.’ But when you get older and you see it from a different perspective, it means a little more, for sure.
“I was in Vegas this past summer and I was driving by T-Mobile Arena and my wife reminded me about it and I was like, ‘Yeah, that seems more cool than it did right after I scored the goal.’
“I think Vegas is a great spot to live and play hockey. So things worked out pretty well.”
After scoring seven goals in his first season with the Golden Knights, Nosek tallied eight goals in each of his next three seasons. He has been consistently solid.
“If you want to play at this level for that long, you have to be consistent and prove it, not just every game, but every practice – especially guys like me on the third or fourth line,” he said. “There are a lot of young guys, especially when you get older, just waiting for the chance. So even in practice, you have to be 100 percent sharp, and that’s what makes you a good pro.”
Both of his boys were born in Vegas – Patrik in 2020, Matias in 2021 – and Nosek has treasured every moment he has been able to spend with them.
“Becoming a father was probably the best thing that has happened to me,” he said. “Patrik was born in January just before COVID started. We stopped playing in March, so it was a good thing for me because I could
Nosek helped the 2022-23 Boston Bruins set a new mark for wins in a season with a 65-12-0-5 record.
Nosek has scored either seven or eight goals in five of seven seasons as a full-time NHL player, a model of consistency.
see him growing every day. With the weather so hot in Vegas, we couldn’t go outside, so we were just stuck at home with our baby.
“And then my wife got pregnant again, so it was a challenging part of life, but the most rewarding as well. They say the days are long and the years go by very fast, but it’s been great.
“My boys are very energetic. They never stop. They run around all the time and they’re still not listening. So it’s challenging, but when they smile, when they say something to you, or when they make you laugh, I think it’s the most rewarding thing.”
Nosek put them on skates for the first time this past summer.
“They seem to love it,” he said. “They have been asking if we are going back. So we are taking it step by step. I hope they keep loving it and if they want to play, they can play. If not, we’ll see what else they’re going to do. I’m looking forward to it.”
Having made Vegas their second home, Nosek and his family hoped to stay, but the Golden Knights’ continued success meant the organization faced a budget crunch to keep its best players.
“After four years there, I wanted to stay, but the cap space was not good, so I was pretty much forced to leave,” he said. “In free agency, I signed with Boston and joined a team that was another great experience. The culture there from leaders like [Patrice] Bergeron and [Brad] Marchand was unbelievable, and so I think I got
lucky with both of those teams.”
Nosek spent two seasons in Boston. The first year he was coached by former Griffins head coach Bruce Cassidy, who would win the Stanley Cup in Vegas the following season after being fired by the Bruins. “Small world,” Nosek said.
During his second year in Boston, the Jim Montgomery-coached Bruins established an NHL record for most wins in a season, going 65-12-0-5.
“It was just that feeling you have, when you’re going to the games, that you just know you’re probably going to win,” Nosek recalled. “I don’t remember the last time I felt that way – maybe in fourth grade when we had only one loss in a season.”
For the team’s stretch run and playoffs, Boston added Nosek’s former teammate, Tyler Bertuzzi, bringing together the two best players from the Calder Cup team again.
“I was talking with our coach before the trade and he was asking me about him, and I said he’s a great guy and a great playoff performer, and he proved it again in Boston. It was nice to play on the same team with him again.”
The Bruins’ coaching staff during the remarkable 2022-23 season – the Bruins’ sixth straight 100-point season – included two former Griffins as assistant coaches: Chris Kelly (2000-01) and John Gruden (1999-2002). “It’s not a coincidence that Grand Rapids has produced many great players and coaches as well as
other people around hockey,” Nosek said. “That doesn’t happen by accident.”
Nevertheless, Boston fans were shocked when their beloved Bruins got knocked out of the first round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs.
“If you win the regular season, it’s great, but it doesn’t mean anything if you don’t prove it in the playoffs,” he said. “Losing in the playoffs after that was not good. It put a little – not a little, but a big dark mark on that season.”
It didn’t ease the pain that Florida reached the Stanley Cup Final that season, losing to Cassidy’s Golden Knights in five games, or that the same Panthers won the Cup a year later. “When we were up 3-1 in games and they came back, I knew they were a special team,” he said. “But losing the series hurt.”
Nosek had high hopes when he signed last season with the New Jersey Devils, a young team that had advanced to the second round of the playoffs the previous year after finishing the season with 112 points, third-most in the league.
It ended up being a season to forget. The Devils missed the playoffs, finishing the year with only 81 points. Nosek missed half of the season with a broken foot after blocking a shot. It was the first time he missed the playoffs as a full-time NHL player.
“I broke my foot, and then I started playing, probably earlier than I was supposed to, and the bone shifted, I needed surgery, and half the season was
gone,” he said. “We had a lot of injuries as a team and I think it was one of the biggest reasons we didn’t make the playoffs.”
If there was a silver lining, the injury meant Nosek got to spend more time with his young boys.
“I always try to find something positive and in that situation, I got to spend quality time with my family and be with the kids. Even when you play at home, you go to the morning skate, get lunch, take a nap, and then you go to the rink again, so on game days, you don’t see them.
“Staying home was great. I put on my dad shoes and got to work at home. I learned a little bit more about myself, too, so it was fun.”
Looking for a fresh start this season, Nosek was thrilled when he got a call from the Stanley Cup champion Panthers. He signed a one-year contract with the team on July 1.
“I just wanted to pick a great team, a good destination, and Florida fit perfectly,” he said. “When they called me, I didn’t hesitate, and I signed right away.”
Nosek is determined to help the Panthers become two-time champions.
“It’s a special group and that’s why I wanted to sign here, because I know they can win again, for sure,” he said. “I like winning. It doesn’t matter if I score goals or not, the most important thing is if we’re winning.”
Nosek spent four seasons with the Vegas Golden Knights after being selected in the 2017 NHL expansion draft.
Nosek entered the 2024-25 season with 434 NHL games played.
Photo
Griffins video coach Erich Junge is responsible for assembling the clips that can offer helpful video analysis throughout the season.
VIDEO GURU
Grand Rapids
Story by Mark Newman
Erich Junge loves hockey, but he realized early that playing in the pros was not his future. He played the sport through high school, but that ended his professional hockey dream.
“Like I tell everyone, I wasn’t good enough to play in college, so I started coaching,” said Junge, who is beginning his third season as the video coach for the Griffins. “I always knew I wanted to be involved in hockey. Ideally, I wanted to play, but I’m not the best skater and I don’t have the greatest hand-eye coordination. So I was a decent player but not great.”
Originally from the West St. Louis suburb of Ballwin, Missouri, Junge decided he wanted to study sports management in college. He attended Ohio University, which is highly regarded for its sports management program. He served as a volunteer with the school’s club hockey team from 2016-20.
State University in Minnesota during the 202122 season. He had interviewed for the position the year prior. “They went with someone else, but a year later, I applied again, and they remembered me,” he said.
At Bemidji, Junge worked with the highly regarded Tom Serratore, who was named CCHA Coach of the Year last season after completing his 23rd campaign with the Beavers.
As the team’s video coach, Junge helps the staff evaluate and assess game action as well as scout upcoming opponents.
“He’s one of a kind,” Junge said. “I like Tom. He’s unique, but he cares about his players and staff, and he does things the right way, which is good to see and he was good to learn from. He took me in and taught me for a year. You do things his way, but his way is generally the right way.”
Junge was surprised at the difference in play from the club level to Division I college hockey.
Junge kept statistics for the team during his first three years at Ohio. “I was tracking shots, hits, plus/minus, faceoffs, and everything else for home games,” he said. “I would send them to the coaches after the games, and they could do with it whatever they wanted.
“During my last year, I worked on video with a good friend who is now at Long Island University. I filled more of a video coaching role, kind of like what I’m doing here. The budget wasn’t very big, so my friend knew the software and was able to create something similar on Google Sheets.”
After graduation, Junge spent the 202021 campaign as volunteer director of skill development for Ohio University. “I was doing more hands-on coaching on the ice,” he said. “I was still doing video, but more individualized video. My role was more of an assistant coach. I was on the bench communicating with players, talking strategy, and all that.”
He served as a volunteer assistant at Bemidji
“Ohio has one of the best club programs in the world, but Bemidji was a whole other level,” he said. “They’re there to play hockey and then also do school. Some of those guys went on to play professional hockey and it opened my eyes to see what good hockey is, how they treat it, and what it takes to be successful.”
At Bemidji State, Junge helped guide the Beavers to the CCHA championship game before being bested by No. 1-ranked Minnesota State-Mankato 2-1 in overtime.
It was a clip of video – not his – that made for a memorable finish.
“We were playing in our conference finals and we went to overtime and basically lost twice,” he said. “Mankato scored in overtime and we went through the handshake line, they were awarded the trophy, and when we got back to the locker room, one of our scratches pulled up a video on his phone, saying, ‘Hey, that goal didn’t go in. It went in through the side.’
“Our coaching staff went to the officials, who went to the CCHA commissioner, and
Junge watches video at double speed to find clips that can be used as teaching tools.
they started looking at it and after an hour, they decided to disallow the goal and replay the overtime. Half of the fans had left, but they decided they couldn’t award the conference championship like that, so the teams went back out on the ice. We lost for a second time about two minutes later, but it was a crazy thing. I don’t think I’ll ever be involved in a game like that again.”
Serendipity helped land Junge his position with the Griffins.
“I had been looking for a job all summer,” he said. “I was applying and interviewing, but I hadn’t heard anything. I applied to be the director of hockey operations at Notre Dame, a role that would have been similar to what I’m doing now. They got down to their final two or three candidates, but they picked someone else over me.
scout for the next opponent. “I’m assembling clips that show the team’s faceoffs, D-zone, forecheck, neutral zone, and their scoring chances for and against. I’m probably leaving out a few things, but I’m pulling together all the stuff that will help us have the best idea of how their team is going to play.
“Generally speaking, most teams don’t change too much over a season, so I’m looking for the most up-to-date clips, especially when we’re playing the same team for the 10th or 12th time. The most upto-date clips can serve as reminders of what they’re doing.”
All AHL home teams upload their game video to a shared site where video coaches can watch and tag clips that they can use as teaching tools for their players.
“Ben Simon, who was the Griffins’ coach at the time, was looking for a video coach. He graduated from Notre Dame and is still close with the staff there and apparently, they told him, ‘We’re hiring this guy, but we like this other guy, too. You should take a look at him.’ I was on the golf course with my buddies back in St. Louis when Ben called to set up an interview on Monday.
“By Tuesday, I was offered the job, and a day later, I accepted.”
Junge faced another learning curve when he joined the Griffins’ staff. “From the club level to the collegiate level, there was a jump, and from college to the pro level, it’s just a whole new game because here it’s hockey all the time. For these guys, this is their job and if they don’t perform well, they’re not going to have a job next year.”
As the team’s video coach, Junge helps the staff evaluate and assess game action as well as scout upcoming opponents.
On a practice day, Junge is usually at the rink early in the morning, working on his pre-
Junge uses software called Catapult Thunder to organize all the clips into separate folders so every faceoff or forecheck can be more readily accessed. “You can organize it however you want,” said Junge, who can cut apart a game in roughly an hour because he watches the action at double speed. “It’s tedious, but it needs to be done.”
All AHL home teams upload their game video to a shared site where video coaches can watch and tag clips that they can use as teaching tools for their players. “I usually give [head coach Dan Watson] an 8-9 minute video and he’ll cut it down to a 3- or 4-minute video, and that’s what we’ll show the team.”
Junge will dig through clips from the past four games of special teams play for Griffins assistant coaches Brian Lashoff and Steph Julien. “They want to see any goals that happen and their faceoffs, too,” he said. “That takes up the majority of my time on a practice day.”
If he has time, Junge will join the team for practice. “I’ll go and help out on the ice, which is one of the things I enjoy. Otherwise, I’m setting up for our meetings, making sure everything’s good to go before whoever gives the presentation. I make sure there aren’t any issues because I’m the unofficial IT guy. I try to help with any computer issues, and we have
Junge spent a season at Bemidji State University in Minnesota before joining the Griffins’ coaching staff.
a printer when we travel on the road, so I’m responsible for setting it up.”
The team uses software called Sportlogiq for more personalized instruction. “Steph and Brian do a good job of compiling individual clips for players,” he said. “I’m usually more focused on the team stuff while they will pull clips to show players on an individual basis.”
Junge is also responsible for generating the pre-scout sheet on individual players that gets posted before each game. “It’s tidbits about specific players, like how they play and their general tendencies,” he said. “It’s nothing too crazy in-depth, but it’s a tip sheet that we hang in the room before every game.”
During home games, Junge sits in the press box high above the ice. “I’ll tag the game live from up there, using a feed that goes directly into my computer and then transfers to our coaches’ computers after I finish,” he said. “During intermissions, they’ll watch the clips quickly and go over anything they might be seeing.”
Although the AHL does not allow official challenges, Junge and Julien maintain radio contact if there is anything worthy of drawing attention. “They might ask for a second look on missed calls or what happened in terms of penalties or even injuries,” he said. “They might want to know what happened by looking at the video.”
Junge uses software called Catapult Thunder to organize all the clips into separate folders so every faceoff or forecheck can be more readily accessed.
On the road, Junge is responsible for setting up the team’s router and server. “Everything I do can be shared with the staff in real time, so the trickiest part, for me, is setting up the technology and then making sure all the wires are plugged in properly and everyone’s connected to the server. I don’t love that part, but it’s something that I have to do to make sure their lives are easier,” he said.
At times, it can be stressful. It’s one of the reasons that he enjoys relaxing at concerts with his newlywed bride, Erin, who works for the City of Portland Parks & Recreation Department. “I never thought I was a big music guy, but I like going to concerts. We’ve seen several concerts this summer. I’ve gone back to St. Louis a couple of times and we just got back from Tennessee,” he said, naming Staind, Shinedown, Tim McGraw, Jordan Davis, Creed, and Three Doors Down as some of the recent acts they’ve seen.
But as much as he’s become an avid concertgoer, no show compares to the sport that is his passion.
“I love hockey,” he said. “It’s intense, it’s fast, and things can change just like that. It’s fun because you never know what’s gonna happen. Things can change in a second.”
Junge is entering his third season as the video coach for the Griffins.
STARS AND (HOPEFULLY) FUTURE STARS
There are no sure things in hockey, but Red Wings fans are crossing their fingers that what they saw during September’s NHL Prospect Games in Traverse City might portend good things to come.
Some of Detroit’s young talent was on display when Hockeytown’s hopefuls swept the two-game series against the Dallas Stars on Sept. 14-15 at Center ICE Arena during a stretch of unseasonably warm weather for northern Michigan.
The young Wings burned their Dallas counterparts with five third-period goals on the way to a 5-1 victory in the Saturday night contest before edging the Stars by a 3-2 margin in a Sunday afternoon affair that preceded the organization’s annual training camp.
Griffins head coach Dan Watson was encouraged by what he saw both on and off the ice.
“We want to see growth in these guys, not just on their hockey side, but also the work they put in this summer,” said Watson, who is beginning his second season behind the Grand Rapids bench. “We want to see things come to fruition for them.”
Comprised of 24 recent draft picks, free agent signees, and tryouts, the Red Wings' roster was highlighted by first-round picks from the last two NHL Entry Drafts.
Center Nate Danielson (9th overall, 2023), who made his professional debut with the Griffins last spring when he skated in two Calder Cup Playoff games, split the 2023-24 season between the Western Hockey League’s Brandon Wheat Kings and Portland Winterhawks.
Right wing Michael Brandsegg-Nygard (15th overall, 2024) made his North American debut in Traverse City after spending most of the 2023-24 campaign with Mora IK in Sweden’s second-highest professional league. A native of Oslo, Norway, Brandsegg-Nygard is the first Norwegian-born player to be selected in the first round of an NHL Entry Draft.
Other notables included defenseman Shai Buium (36th overall, 2021), who helped the University of Denver win its second NCAA Division I National Championship in three seasons; right wing Jakub Rychlovsky, who signed a two-year, entry-level contract with Detroit on June 3 after leading Czechia’s top professional league with 26 goals during the 202324 season; and goaltender Carter Gylander, a 2019
seventh-round pick who logged a 2.93 goals-against average and .901 save percentage in 32 games at Colgate University last season.
Gylander stopped 29 of 30 shots in five periods of play before relinquishing the net to Landon Miller for the final stanza. Miller, 18, the Red Wings’ fourthround pick in the 2024 draft, is returning to the Soo Greyhounds this fall for his third season in the Ontario Hockey League.
A last-minute addition to the lineup was Amadeus Lombardi, who replaced Ondrej Becher (80th overall, 2024) after the Czechia center was sidelined with an ankle injury.
Lombardi, who tallied three assists in the NHL Prospect Games after spending all of last season in Grand Rapids, often pushed the play with the help of his linemates: Alexander Doucet, who scored two goals in the first game and a goal and an assist in the second; and Hunter Johannes, who had a goal and two assists during the two-game set.
Watson was impressed by the amount of responsible, two-way action he saw during the weekend. Getting young players to play consistently, “shift after shift, period after period,” can be a tall order.
“It’s hard,” Watson said. “It’s a mental challenge more than it is a physical challenge for these kids. When you turn pro, that’s how you are measured. Can you do this game in and game out? There were spurts when we did and spurts when we didn’t.
“Overall, I thought it was a good measure for two games.”
He was pleased with his players’ willingness to battle.
“I love to see those guys who are willing to go those ‘dirty areas’ [and] be willing to take cross-checks and slashes and still get opportunities to score goals. That’s the way the game is going. Whoever wins the net front is typically going to have a good chance to win the game.”
While the games were largely an exhibition of budding talent, Watson was encouraged by his team’s play.
“We want these kids to get better – that’s our job,” he said. “We want to show them a good experience, and winning both games after having two good, hard practices in Detroit before coming here [was a good first step].”
Carter
stopped 29 of 30 shots during the two games.
Gylander
Nate Danielson impressed with his leadership qualities.
Shai Buium is turning pro after helping the University of Denver win its second national championship in three seasons.
Amadeus Lombardi excelled in driving the pace of play when he had the puck on his stick.
Gabriel Seger celebrated what proved to be the game-winning goal in the first game of the series.
Michael Brandsegg-Nygard made his North American debut before sitting out the second game with a groin injury.
THE RIGHT DIRECTION
As the Grand Rapids Rise prepare for their second Pro Volleyball Federation season, the DeVos family is excited about the growing acceptance of women’s sports in North America.
When Cole DeVos watched the Grand Rapids Rise lose to the Omaha Supernovas in the first-ever Pro Volleyball Federation (PVF) championship final on May 18, 2024, his competitive instincts left him disappointed with the outcome.
“Losing the championship was a bummer,” he said. “It definitely stung for a while, but then you take a step back and realize what an incredible first season it was. What the league and our team accomplished was nothing short of amazing.
“I am not going to sugarcoat things and say everything was perfect, because like any other startup, there were challenges all along the way, but getting through the first year of any professional sports league is a huge success.”
When DeVos recalls his earliest sports memories, he remembers going to Griffins games.
Born to Grand Rapids Griffins co-owner Dan DeVos and his wife Pamella shortly before the Griffins’ inaugural season in 1996-97, Cole started attending hockey games at Van Andel Arena as a little boy. “Even if my dad was busy that night, I’d be dragging people to go. I went to as many home games as I could,” he said.
“I have a lot of memories of going to the locker room with my dad and, you know, probably completely bothering all the players because I was just this kid who loves talking hockey. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve become more of a basketball guy and overall sports fan, but when I was younger, hockey was everything. I knew hockey like the back of my hand since I was three years old.”
DeVos was a member of Hope College’s hockey team that, in 2018, won the ACHA Division III national championship. It was not the only good thing to come from his college hockey experience. It was through one of his hockey teammates that he met his wife, Lexi. The couple married this past summer.
What was it that attracted DeVos to hockey in the first place? “Honestly, it was probably the excitement of the arena,” he recalled. “The atmosphere inside the building is probably the first thing that caught my eye.
“Grand Rapids has been such an incredible sports town. Just look at what the fans here have done with the Rise and how quickly they embraced the team. They’re creating the same atmosphere at the Rise matches that I saw at
The Rise averaged nearly 4,500 fans per match in 2024, including a sellout of 7,805 for their inaugural match.
Cole DeVos helped build the Rise franchise from the ground up as director of strategic investments for DP Fox Ventures.
on April 14, 2023.
those early Griffins games.”
DeVos believes that the city, despite its relative size, can match the intensity of larger metropolitan areas.
“I go to Orlando Magic basketball games and certainly there are more people in attendance at NBA games, but the atmosphere at Van Andel Arena when the place is packed is really unmatched. You can really feel the excitement when the crowd gets behind the home team.”
It was that palpable passion that DeVos saw developing again with the arrival of the Rise and the excitement that the sport of volleyball is creating in the city.
Before PVF came into play, DeVos said that he and his father attended several women’s volleyball matches, including the NCAA National Championship in Omaha and a Big Ten volleyball match at the University of Wisconsin.
“As soon as we saw those events, we felt like it was something we needed to bring to Grand Rapids,” he said. “You can watch volleyball on TV, and while it’s great and you enjoy it, there’s nothing like being there in person. As
soon as we saw the action in person, our jaws dropped. We thought it was amazing. We were surprised to find that there was no full-fledged professional volleyball league for women in North America.”
Thus, PVF started play in 2024 with teams in seven cities – Atlanta, Columbus, Las Vegas, Omaha, Orlando, San Diego, and Grand Rapids – competing over a 24-game schedule that stretched from January to May.
“As an organization, we’re excited that we can bring women’s volleyball to the city and inspire the next generation by providing a quality product with role models for young girls who hope to play the sport at a higher level someday,” said DeVos.
The early success of the Rise is a testament to not only the talent on the court but also the team behind the team.
DeVos said the organization was fortunate to hire Cathy George as the Rise’s first head coach and vice president of volleyball operations.
The former Michigan State University women’s volleyball coach has been an ideal ambassador for the sport and for the team.
Cole DeVos and head coach Cathy George unveiled the Rise’s name, logo and branding during a Griffins game
“She’s incredible,” he said. “Just the ideas that she has had for us from a league perspective have been invaluable. At this stage, it is a full team effort and she’s been a huge asset for us at the league level. From a team perspective, we understand the business side, but when it comes to the volleyball piece, her experience with the sport has been very helpful. Things that might work for the Griffins might not always translate to the court, so she’s been super helpful with her insight.
“From a community perspective, she has taken the ball and run with it. We don’t even have to ask. She knows how important that piece is to the organization and she has done incredible things because she knows community outreach will ultimately lead to the growth of volleyball in the area.”
Devos feels lucky that the Griffins’ front office and staff have wholeheartedly welcomed the challenge of supporting a second sport with their efforts. He can’t say enough about what the Griffins organization did to make the first season of Rise volleyball a success.
“As a young professional coming into
this, it’s been a blessing for me to learn from every single one of them,” he said. “From the leadership of Scott Gorsline and Tim Gortsema to Brandon Nelson with his in-game operations to ticket sales with Matt Batchelder and his team, all these pieces came together to build the Rise from the ground up.
“Every person in the front office saw this as an incredible opportunity and accepted the challenge of a new endeavor when it could have been easy for them to say we have enough going with the Griffins, but there was none of that. It’s been an exciting experience for everyone.”
Indeed, DeVos said the entire organization has felt gratified by the city’s response to the Rise thus far.
“We couldn’t be more pleased with the reaction. It’s been nothing but positive as far as the reaction from everyone who attended matches during our inaugural season,” he said.
“We felt if we could just get people in the building to watch the product and to see how incredible these athletes are, they’ll want to come back. We’re already seeing proof of that
Grand Rapids’ 2024 roster was filled with former NCAA All-Americans, including Holland, Michigan, native Alyssa Jensen (right).
The Rise represent the highest-level women’s pro sports team to ever call Grand Rapids home.
with more companies wanting to become partners, more people wanting season tickets, and more wanting single-game tickets.
“The excitement is there, which is really fun.”
As the director of strategic investments at DP Fox Ventures, DeVos is involved in the firm’s interests in transportation, sports, entertainment, fashion, retail, resort management, and real estate. Working with the Griffins and Rise organizations has been like a dream come true.
Having played a variety of sports growing up, DeVos said he felt drawn to finding a career in sports. In high school, he did a couple of brief internships with the Griffins. He earned a bachelor’s degree in management from Hope, then served in various business and management roles at Stats Perform, a sports data and analytics firm with offices in Chicago.
“I knew I wanted to stay involved in sports in some way. And I wanted to get a job on my own and just figure things out,” he said. “I wanted to start at the bottom, work my way up, and see what I could do. I started in a business
development role at Stats Perform before becoming an account executive. I enjoyed the work and learned a lot, but it was eventually time to come back to the family business.”
Now DeVos is anxious to continue building on the momentum behind the recent ascent of the Rise.
“We wanted to bring to Grand Rapids something the people here had not seen before. We hoped that once they saw the product, they would be hooked, which is now happening,” he said. “We’re enthusiastic about our plans for season two and beyond, and we’re doing everything we can to make sure the product is even a bigger success going forward.
“Our success will be reflected in the league’s success, and we’re excited that we are expanding to 28 games for the 2025 season, when we welcome the addition of the Indy Ignite to our eight-team league. Obviously, we want our league to continue to grow, but we also want the sport of volleyball to continue to grow.
“We’re confident that we’re heading in the right direction.”
Photo credit: Matt Bills/Omaha Supernovas
RECORD BOOK AND LEADERS
Through 2023-24 season
Tom McCollum
Sebastian Cossa
Travis Richards
Darryl Bootland
Dominik Shine
Michel Picard
The AHL All-Star Classic was not held in either 2020-21 or 2021-22 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
GRIFFINS IN THE ALL-STAR GAME
2023-24 Jonatan Berggren, Simon Edvinsson
2022-23 Brian Lashoff (captain)
2019-20 Matthew Ford (captain), Chris Terry
2018-19 Chris Terry
2017-18 Matt Lorito, Matt Puempel
2016-17 Matt Lorito, Robbie Russo, Todd Nelson (head coach)
2015-16 Jeff Hoggan (captain), Xavier Ouellet
2014-15 Xavier Ouellet, Teemu Pulkkinen
2013-14 Alexey Marchenko, Jeff Blashill (co-coach)
2012-13 Chad Billins, Petr Mrazek, Gustav Nyquist
2011-12 Gustav Nyquist
2010-11 Ilari Filppula, Brendan Smith
2009-10 Patrick Rissmiller
2008-09 Jakub Kindl, Daniel Larsson
2007-08 Jonathan Ericsson, Jimmy Howard
2006-07 Derek Meech, Kip Miller (captain)
2005-06 Valtteri Filppula, Jiri Hudler, Donald MacLean
2004-05 Niklas Kronwall, Joey MacDonald
2003-04 Jiri Hudler, Niklas Kronwall, Travis Richards (captain), Nathan Robinson
2002-03 Marc Lamothe, Mark Mowers
2001-02 Chris Bala, John Gruden, Kip Miller, Martin Prusek, Petr Schastlivy, Bruce Cassidy (head coach), Gene Reilly (asst. coach)
2000-01 Mike Fountain, Joel Kwiatkowski, Travis Richards, Todd White, Bruce Cassidy (co-coach)
1999-00 John Gruden, Jani Hurme, Kevin Miller, Petr Schastlivy
1998-99 Robert Petrovicky, Maxim Spiridonov
1997-98 Ian Gordon, Kerry Huffman, Michel Picard
1996-97 Jeff Nelson, Michel Picard, Pokey Red
2020 - Chris Terry
2023 - Brian Lashoff
2024 - Jonatan Berggren
2019 - Chris Terry
2018 - Matt Lorito
2015 - Teemu Pulkkinen
2013 - Chad Billins
2020 - Matthew Ford
2018 - Matt Puempel
2016 - Jeff Hoggan and Xavier Ouellet
2014 - Alexey Marchenko
2013 - Gustav Nyquist
2013 - Petr Mrazek
Bright Futures Begin Here
CALLS
BOARDING
Called for any action which causes an opponent to be thrown violently into the boards.
CHARGING
Taking a run at an opposing player using more than three strides to build up speed.
CROSS CHECKING
A check or block delivered by a player with both hands on the stick and no part of the stick on the ice.
DELAYED PENALTY
Referee extends his arm and points to the penalized player until the penalized team regains possession of the puck.
ELBOWING
Called when a player uses an elbow to impede an opponent.
HIGH STICKING
Making contact with an opponent while carrying the stick above shoulder hight.
HOLDING
Clutching an opposing player’s body with the hands, arms or legs.
HOOKING
The use of the stick or blade to impede the progress of an opponent.
INTERFERENCE
When a player impedes the progress of an opponent who is not in possession of the puck.
KNEEING
Called when a player uses a knee to impede an opponent.
MISCONDUCT
10-minute or disqualification penalty for excessive or additional misbehavior on the ice.
ROUGHING
Called for engaging in fisticuffs or shoving.
SLASHING
Striking an opposing player with the stick.
SPEARING
Called for using the stick like a spear.
TRIPPING
Called for using the stick, arm or leg to cause an opponent to trip or fall.
UNSPORTSMANLIKE CONDUCT
Called for unsportsmanlike actions such as disputing an official’s decision, grabbing the face mask of a player, etc.
WASH-OUT
When used by the referee, it means goal disallowed. When used by linesmen, it means there is no icing or no offside.
ABBOTSFORD CANUCKS
BAKERSFIELD CONDORS
BELLEVILLE SENATORS
BRIDGEPORT ISLANDERS
CALGARY WRANGLERS
CHARLOTTE CHECKERS
CHICAGO WOLVES
CLEVELAND MONSTERS
COACHELLA VALLEY FIREBIRDS
COLORADO EAGLES
GRAND RAPIDS GRIFFINS
HARTFORD WOLF PACK
HENDERSON SILVER KNIGHTS
HERSHEY BEARS
IOWA WILD
LAVAL ROCKET
LEHIGH VALLEY PHANTOMS
MANITOBA MOOSE
MILWAUKEE ADMIRALS
ONTARIO REIGN
PROVIDENCE BRUINS
ROCHESTER AMERICANS
ROCKFORD ICEHOGS
SAN DIEGO GULLS
SAN JOSE BARRACUDA
SPRINGFIELD THUNDERBIRDS
SYRACUSE CRUNCH
TEXAS STARS
TORONTO MARLIES
TUCSON ROADRUNNERS
UTICA COMETS
WILKES-BARRE/SCRANTON PENGUINS
2024-25
AHL TEAM MAP
IT ALL STARTS HERE
GRIFFINS IN THE NHL
Since their inception in 1996, the Griffins have sent 206 players to the National Hockey League, and 20 former players or coaches have gone on to win the Stanley Cup. In fact, a Griffins alumnus has had his name engraved on Lord Stanley’s chalice in each of the last five years, 11 times in the last 17 years, and 13 times in the last 20 seasons. In chronological order, here are the 28 goalies and 178 skaters who have worn an NHL sweater after playing for Grand Rapids, along with the dates of their NHL debuts/returns.
Former Griffins Gustav Nyquist of the Nashville Predators and Filip Hronek of the Vancouver Canucks fight for position during the 2024 Stanley Cup Playoffs. Nyquist (2013) and Hronek (2017) each won a Calder Cup with Grand Rapids.
Photo Credit: Getty Images
Ciernik................................1/23/01 OTT at NYI
35 .........Darren Rumble ............................. 2/6/01 STL at COL
36 Joel Kwiatkowski 2/19/01 OTT at BUF
37 Todd White 2/19/01 OTT at BUF
38 Chris Neil 10/3/01 OTT at TOR 39 Toni Dahlman 1/3/02 OTT vs. WSH
40 Steve Martins 1/11/02 OTT at FLA 41 Kip Miller 1/17/02 NYI at SJ
Jody Hull 2/4/02 OTT at TB
.........Dmitry Afanasenkov ......................2/6/02 TB at FLA
44 .........Simon Lajeunesse .........................3/7/02 OTT at SJ
45 .........Martin Prusek ..........................3/23/02 OTT vs. ATL
46 Chris Bala 3/27/02 OTT at NYI
47 Neil Little 3/28/02 PHI at CAR
48 Josh Langfeld 3/30/02 OTT vs. TB
49 Gaetan Royer 4/1/02 TB vs. NYR
50 Jason Spezza 10/24/02 OTT at BOS
51 Sean Avery 10/29/02 DET vs. SJ
52 .........Jason Doig ................................12/3/02 WSH at PIT
53 .........Jason Williams ........................ 12/5/02 DET at PHX
54 .........Patrick Boileau ..................... 12/19/02 DET vs. DAL
55 Stacy Roest 2/20/03 DET vs. EDM
56 Wade Brookbank 10/9/03 NSH vs. ANA
57 Julien Vauclair 10/25/03 OTT at MTL
58 Jiri Hudler 10/29/03 DET vs. STL
59 Curtis Joseph 10/30/03 DET at NSH
60 Darryl Bootland 11/8/03 DET vs. NSH
61 .........Mark Mowers........................ 11/19/03 DET vs. CBJ
62 .........Nathan Robinson ................. 11/28/03 DET vs. NYI
63 .........Blake Sloan.................................12/4/03 DAL at LA
64 ....... Niklas Kronwall ..................12/10/03 DET at BUF
65 Ryan Barnes 12/15/03 DET vs. FLA
66 Chris Kelly 2/5/04 OTT vs. TOR
67
68
10/5/05 NSH vs. SJ
72 .........Chris Osgood ............................ 10/29/05 DET at CHI
73 Kyle Quincey 11/25/05 DET at ANA
74 .........Jimmy Howard ........................ 11/28/05 DET at LA
75 .........Valtteri Filppula........................12/15/05 DET at FLA
76 .........Rob Collins............................. 12/17/05 NYI vs. COL
77 Manny Legace 1/5/06 DET vs. STL
78 David Gove 1/31/06 CAR at MTL
79 Tomas Kopecky 2/28/06 DET at SJ
80 Alexandre Giroux 3/25/06 NYR at TB
81 Joey MacDonald 10/19/06 DET at SJ
82 Derek Meech 12/7/06 DET vs. STL
83 Matt Ellis 12/18/06 DET at CBJ
84 Matt Hussey 1/26/07 DET at STL
85 Sheldon Brookbank 2/6/07 NSH at PIT
86 Danny Syvret 2/27/07 EDM vs. PHX
87 .........Mark Hartigan ........................ 11/29/07 DET vs. TB
88 .........Drew MacIntyre....................... 12/13/07 VAN at SJ
89 .........Peter Vandermeer .................2/10/08 PHX vs. NSH
90 Jonathan Ericsson 2/22/08 DET at CGY
91 Garrett Stafford 2/23/08 DET at VAN
92 Darren Helm 3/13/08 DET vs. DAL
93 Mattias Ritola 3/15/08 DET vs. NSH
94 Clay Wilson 3/25/08 CBJ at NSH
95 Darren McCarty 3/28/08 DET vs. STL
96 .........Krys Kolanos................................11/4/08 MIN at SJ
97 .........Landon Wilson.................... 11/22/08 DAL vs. ANA
98 .........Bryan Helmer..................... 11/28/08 WSH vs. MTL
99 Chris Chelios 12/13/08 DET at PHX
100 Aaron Downey 1/29/09 DET vs. DAL
101 Justin Abdelkader 1/31/09 DET at WSH
102 Ville Leino 1/31/09 DET at WSH
103 Aaron Gagnon 10/16/09 DAL vs. BOS
104 Scott Parse 10/24/09 LA at PHX
105 Doug Janik 11/3/09 DET vs. BOS
106........Ryan Keller ............................... 11/25/09 OTT at NJ
107.......Jakub Kindl............................ 12/3/09 DET vs. EDM
108.......Kris Newbury ....................... 12/14/09 DET vs. PHX
109 Darren Haydar 2/10/10 COL vs. ATL
110 Andreas Lilja 3/1/10 DET at COL
111 Jeremy Williams 10/24/10 NYR vs. NJ
112 Jan Mursak 12/27/10 DET at COL
113 Chris Mueller 12/28/10 NSH vs. DAL
114 Tomas Tatar 12/31/10 DET vs. NYI
115.......Cory Emmerton .......................1/22/11 DET vs. CHI
116........Patrick Rissmiller...................... 2/23/11 ATL at BUF
117 ......Tom McCollum ........................3/30/11 DET vs. STL
118 Gustav Nyquist 11/1/11 DET vs. MIN
119 Fabian Brunnstrom 11/5/11 DET vs. ANA
120 Brendan Smith 11/17/11 DET at SJ
121 Mark Cullen 11/29/11 FLA at CAR
122 Chris Conner 12/2/11 DET at BUF
123 Joakim Andersson 12/27/11 DET vs. STL
124 ......Ty Conklin ......................... 3/21/12 DET at NYR
125.....Riley Sheahan ................4/7/12 DET vs. CHI
126.......Brian Lashoff .............................1/21/13 DET at CBJ
127.......Mike Knuble..............................1/26/13 PHI at FLA
128 Jamie Tardif 2/2/13 BOS at TOR
129 Petr Mrazek 2/7/13 DET at STL
130 Jonas Gustavsson 2/19/13 DET at NSH
131 Carlo Colaiacovo 4/1/13 DET vs. COL
132 Danny DeKeyser 10/2/13 DET vs. BUF
133 Luke Glendening 10/12/13 DET vs. PHI
134.......Xavier Ouellet........................... 10/21/13 DET vs. SJ
135.......Adam Almquist ..................... 11/4/13 DET at WPG
136.......Chad Billins.............................. 11/5/13 CGY at MIN
137 Patrick Eaves 12/14/13 DET vs. PIT
138 Tomas Jurco 12/15/13 DET vs. TB
139 Jordin Tootoo 12/19/13 DET vs. CGY
140 Alexey Marchenko 1/4/14 DET at DAL
141 Teemu Pulkkinen 3/14/14 DET vs. EDM
142 Landon Ferraro 3/18/14 DET vs. TOR
143 ......Calle Jarnkrok...................3/21/14 NSH at CGY
144.......Mitch Callahan..........................3/25/14 DET at CBJ
145 Ryan Sproul 4/13/14 DET at STL
146.......Andrej Nestrasil.......................10/9/14 DET vs. BOS
147.......Stephen Weiss ......................11/24/14 DET vs. OTT
148.....Mattias Janmark...........10/8/15 DAL vs. PIT
149 Dylan Larkin 10/9/15 DET vs. TOR 150 Kevin Porter 10/10/15 PIT at ARI
Andreas Athanasiou 11/8/15 DET vs. DAL
Nosek.............. 12/26/15 DET at NSH
153 Eric Tangradi 1/25/16 DET at NYI
154 Anthony Mantha 3/15/16 DET at PHI
155.......Alan Quine ..................................4/9/16 NYI vs. PHI
156.......Martin Frk.............................10/18/16 CAR at EDM
157.....Tyler Bertuzzi................ 11/8/16 DET at PHI 158.......Jared Coreau.............................. 12/3/16 DET at PIT 159 Nick Jensen 12/20/16 DET at TB 160 Drew Miller 2/28/17 DET at VAN 161.......Robbie Russo ............................. 3/7/17 DET at TOR
162 Dan Renouf 3/27/17 DET at CAR
163 Ben Street 3/28/17 DET at CAR
164 Evgeny Svechnikov 4/3/17 DET vs. OTT
165 Matt Lorito 4/8/17 DET vs. MTL
166 Kyle Criscuolo 11/17/17 BUF at DET
167 Dominic Turgeon 1/14/18 DET at CHI
168.......Joe Hicketts .................................1/22/18 DET at NJ
169.......Dennis Cholowski ....................10/4/18 DET vs. CBJ
170.......Libor Sulak................................10/4/18 DET vs. CBJ 171.....Filip Hronek ..................10/4/18 DET vs. CBJ
172 Wade Megan 11/1/18 DET vs. NJ 173 Christoffer Ehn 11/6/18 DET vs. VAN
174 Eddie Pasquale 12/4/18 TB at DET
Rasmussen .......2/7/19 DET vs. VGK
Zadina .....................2/24/19 DET vs. SJ
Matt Puempel 3/23/19 DET at VGK
McIlrath .................3/25/19 DET at SJ
Chelios................................3/29/19 DET vs. NJ
Smith ............. 10/25/19 DET vs. BUF 181.....Calvin Pickard ............. 11/29/19 DET at PHI
Madison Bowey 12/14/19 DET at MTL
Taro Hirose 2/6/20 DET at BUF
Lindstrom .......... 2/6/20 DET at BUF 185.....Joe Veleno .................... 4/27/21 DET at CBJ
186 Mathias Brome 5/7/21 DET at CBJ 187.....Moritz Seider ............... 10/14/21 DET vs. TB 188.......Riley Barber............................. 12/18/21 DET vs. NJ 189.......Gemel Smith............................... 2/2/22 DET vs. LA 190.......Luke Witkowski........................3/12/22 DET at CGY
191 Chase Pearson 3/24/22 DET at NYI
192 Harri Sateri 4/7/22 ARI vs. VAN
193 Turner Elson 4/26/22 DET at TOR 194 Matt Luff 10/27/22 DET at BOS 195.....Austin Czarnik.............. 11/6/22 DET at NYR 196.....Jonatan Berggren..... 11/10/22 DET vs. NYR 197.....Magnus Hellberg ....... 12/14/22 DET at MIN 198.......Elmer Soderblom ................. 12/14/22 DET at MIN 199.....Jakub Vrana ................ 2/21/23 DET at WSH 200.....Adam Erne ..................... 3/2/23 DET vs. SEA 201 Alex Chiasson 3/4/23 DET at NYI
202.....Simon Edvinsson.......... 3/18/23 DET vs. COL 203.....Alex Nedeljkovic ...........3/23/23 DET vs. STL 204.....Zach Aston-Reese .......12/11/23 DET at DAL 205.....Michael Hutchinson ...... 12/23/23 DET at NJ
206.....Ville Husso ...................2/13/24 DET at EDM
Bold = Played in the NHL during the 2023-24 Season
Italics = Had name engraved on the Stanley Cup after playing for Grand Rapids
OUR CUPS
RUNNETH OVER
Since 2004, 20 former Griffins players and coaches have earned the honor of having their names engraved on the Stanley Cup as champions of the National Hockey League, in either playing, coaching or managerial capacities. This crowning achievement has happened in an unprecedented five consecutive postseasons. Can you match each alumnus with his Cup-winning team? Three alumni have twice hosted the most famous trophy in sports, and three teams will be used multiple times. Good luck!
PARTING SHOT
Lucas Raymond, cutting between goalie Ville Husso and defenseman Jeff Petry, was the star attraction during the traditional Red and White Game that concluded the Red Wings’ training camp in Traverse City on Sept. 22. The 22-year-old Swede, who led Detroit in scoring last season, signed an eight-year, $64.6 million contract just days before the annual event.
Photo by Mark Newman
EASY TO DRINK EASY TO ENJOY
