The Detroit Red Wings don’t play till tomorrow night when they face the Tampa Bay Lightning. Tonight, their AHL affiliate, the Grand Rapids Griffins, played their first game of the season, taking on the Colorado Eagles, the affiliate of the Colorado Avalanche. Before the season started, the Red Wings sent Jonatan Berggren, Simon Edvinsson, Elmer Soderblom, and Marco Kasper to the Griffins. They also sent Zach Aston-Reese to Grand Rapids after he cleared waivers.
The Youngsters Shine
The Griffins picked up a 3-2 win tonight over the Eagles. Taro Hirose showed up as the star of the show as he scored two goals and added an assist, leading the way. However, Soderblom, Berggren, and Edvinsson added assists on the score sheet. Austin Czarnik, who spent some time with the Wings last season, also found the score sheet, adding a goal and an assist in the win.
All hope was that Sebastian Cossa would get the start in net, but that may have to wait till tomorrow night as Michael Hutchinson got the start and stopped 36 of the 38 shots he saw, and he looked good picking up the win to lead the Griffins to a 1-0-0 start in the 2023-24 season.
The Griffins are back again tomorrow night against the same Eagles team as they look to continue their winning ways as they did tonight. The one player I’d like to see get going tomorrow night is Amadeus Lombardi, who put up 102 points last year for the Flint Firebirds and has only one point in the Red Wings system, which came last year in one of his two games and came on an assist, that kid the tools to be a prolific goal scorer and be a key asset for the Red Wings in the future.
Super article.