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While everyone is glued to their TV’s this time of year to the Stanley Cup Playoffs, the AHL is also in postseason mode with the Calder Cup Playoffs in full-swing. For the Chicago Blackhawks’ AHL affiliate, the Rockford IceHogs, Saturday night marked Game 1 of their opening-round series against the Grand Rapids Griffins and the start of their third-straight trip to the postseason.
With a packed-house at the BMO Center in Rockford for Game 1, the crowd was treated to an overtime thriller with a sour ending as the Griffins walked away with a 3-2 victory.
It’s been six years since the Rockford IceHogs have won a Calder Cup Playoff series that wasn’t the recently added “play-in” round. The past two seasons saw the IceHogs win the No. 4 seed vs. No. 5 seed play-in series, but fall in the Central Division Semifinals. After reaching the Calder Cup Western Conference Finals in 2018, the IceHogs missed the playoffs in 2019, COVID cancelled the 2020 Calder Cup Playoffs (they were tied for fourth-place at the time), and opted out of the COVID-shortened 2021 postseason.
The IceHogs started the game fast and got an early opportunity to push the Griffins by drawing a penalty just 29 seconds into the game. While they were unable to score on the first man-advantage of the game, they would still be able to get out to the game’s first lead thanks to Lukas Reichel connecting with Michal Teply.
Following the opening goal, the IceHogs and Griffins would exchange decent scoring chances with Reichel nearly missing a possible 2-0 goal a few minutes after assisting on the opening tally. Grand Rapids eventually took the lead in shots on goal towards the end of the period, but Jaxson Stauber was able to fend-off all 11 first period Griffins shots.
That play from Stauber continued into the second period, with a few saves leading to breakouts the other way for the IceHogs. Brett Seney nearly buried a breakaway following a big save from Stauber, but was stopped by Griffins netminder Sebastian Cossa. While Rockford was out-shot in the period, it would be Zach Sanford extending the IceHogs’ lead to 2-0 after roofing a backhand pass from Mike Hardman.
The intensity continued to escalate as the period wore-on, but the IceHogs were up to the Griffins’ challenge and after killing-off a Filip Roos penalty with just over two minutes to play in the second period, took the 2-0 lead into the locker room for the second intermission.
That escalating intensity carried into the third period as Isaak Phillips and Marco Kasper got in an extended shoving match early in the period to give both teams a two-minute, four-on-four portion of play. During that two minutes, it would be Dominik Shine breaking the shutout bid for Stauber and getting the Griffins on the board just over three minutes into the frame.
That momentum would continue with the majority of the third period chances going the way of the Griffins. Aside from two rush chances from Lukas Reichel and Colton Dach, the IceHogs’ offense couldn’t string-together an extended shift in their offensive zone. With 4:25 to play in regulation, the Griffins tied the game thanks to Amadeus Lombardi. That goal would send the game into overtime.
Usually when postseason hockey game go into overtime, you are hoping for either a hard-nosed, greasy goal to end it or a beautiful snipe. The ending tonight was really neither of those things.
On the overtime winner, Brett Seney is hit hard into the boards by a Griffins defender. The play goes uncalled. Filip Roos steps in to try to fight the defenseman, but again no call is made on the play and it continues into a one-on-one between Wyatt Kaiser and Jonatan Berggren. Breggren wins the battle and sneaks the overtime-winner past Stauber.
Here’s what IceHogs head coach Anders Sorensen had to say about the final play of the game and his takeaways following a 2-0 blown lead in the Game 1 loss.
The IceHogs are back in action on Wednesday as they head to Grand Rapids for Game 2 and then Game 3 on Friday of the Best-of-Five Central Division Semifinal round. If they win one or both of those games, the two teams will head back to Rockford for the potential Game 4 next Sunday.
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