The Griffins secured their first trip to the AHL Finals with a Game 7 win at Van Andel Arena. (Jennifer Leigh/MiHockey)

Griffins win Game 7 with OKC, secure first trip to AHL Finals in franchise history

The Griffins secured their first trip to the AHL Finals with a Game 7 win at Van Andel Arena. (Jennifer Leigh/MiHockey)
Tomas Jurco scored the game-winner for the Griffins in Game 7 of their Western Conference Finals match-up with Oklahoma City. (Michael Caples/MiHockey)

By Pat Evans –

GRAND RAPIDS – The Grand Rapids Griffins now have an opportunity to give the city’s signature Alexander Calder sculpture a nice friend: the Calder Cup trophy.

Following an up-and-down series full of emotion against Oklahoma City, the Griffins are now moving on to the franchise’s first AHL Finals appearance.

Playing on low fumes following four games in five days, both teams gave it their all in Game 7 of the Western Conference Finals, with the Griffins pulling it out, 5-4.

“Both teams fought as hard as they could, neither team quit,” Griffins head coach Jeff Blashill said. “It was an emotional series both ways, and this game replicated it.”

That emotion included a postponed game because of the massive tornado that struck Oklahoma City last Friday, delaying the series and seeing the Griffins staff helping with clean-up and fundraising efforts.

But it also included the Barons going up early in the series, 2-1, before the Griffins took a 3-2 lead coming back to Van Andel Arena in Grand Rapids. Game 6 looked to be sealed with a 3-1 Griffins lead before losing the game in the last 10 minutes.

Game 7 had all the makings of a classic game to cap an exciting series. The game had four ties and five lead-changes.

Grand Rapids took an early lead 54 seconds into the game when forward Jan Mursak deflected an Adam Almquist shot into the OKC net.

A little more than half way through the first period, Oklahoma City tallied two goals within 30 seconds of each other.

Griffins forward Tomas Tatar grabbed the lead with a power-play goal with about four minutes left in the period.

The Griffins took another lead early in midway through the second when forward Gustav Nyquist netted a gorgeous shot from the right wing above Oklahoma City goaltender Yann Danis.

The Barons responded with three minutes left in the period to keep the game tied headed into the third period.

Mursak tied the game up with his second goal of the game with a little more than 13 minutes left in the game.

Grand Rapids forward Tomas Jurco used his flashing breakaway speed to take a puck and slip it past Danis with 6:52 to go and seal the game at 5-4.

The breakaway game-winner seemed fitting as Jurco missed a chance to win Game 6 with a penalty shot. The Game 7 goal was Jurco’s seventh of the playoffs.

“It’s a great feeling,” Jurco said, shortly before taking a shaving cream pie to the face in a celebratory locker room. “I guess I got a little lucky, maybe a little was skill, I don’t know. I was just happy it went in.”

Blashill said Jurco was too hard on himself following that miss.

“I know he felt real bad about that he didn’t score (on the penalty shot the night before),” Blashill said. “He takes things hard. He wants to be a winner and so it was nice to get that retribution. It was great for him.”

Just as it was one play of many, the Calder Cup is just another step according to Blashill.

“It’s a great next step for the team,” Blashill said. “It was obviously a grueling, hard series with two even swings both ways. We feel very fortunate and excited to compete for the Calder Cup championship.”

The championship series will begin Saturday in Syracuse, N.Y., in a 2-3-2 series, as Syracuse finished the regular season with more points.

The Crunch have won 11 of 12 games in the playoffs, but that’s just a stat on the stat sheet to Blashill. Ten players on the roster were part of the Norfolk team that won the Calder Cup last season.

“The only stat that matters is the series starts 0-0,” he said.

Syracuse plays a an aggressive forecheck, get-to-the-net-hard game, similar to the Barons, Blashill said, unlike the road to the Calder Cup, where all the series pitted the Griffins against different styled opponents.

“Oklahoma City was real different from the other two teams we faced,” Blashill said. “This series will help us prepare for the next one.”

Regardless of the way the next series goes, Grand Rapids is in uncharted territory, playing deeper into June than ever before. The Griffins did have a trip to the IHL finals in 2000, but this season’s run will help them fill out the rafters a little bit more.

“I’m happy for our guys and this organization deserves to celebrate,” Blashill said. “We fought through ups and downs and we’re Western Conference Champions.”

Coming as far as Grand Rapids has, a lot of the credit could go to Blashill for molding a fairly young team into a championship-worthy squad.

“He’s a great coach for us, he’s taken us this far” Nyquist said. “He’s helping us young guys be ready for the NHL and it’s great for us to learn from him.”

But Blashill sees it differently.

“Honestly I don’t see it that way,” he said. “It’s not about the coach. This is an unreal group of players who bought into the system. They went out and did all the work.”

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