Mrazek leads Griffins to win over Checkers

 

By Pat Evans –

On the shoulders of an outstanding outing by goaltender Petr Mrazek, the Grand Rapids Griffins exacted some revenge on the Charlotte Checkers with a 5-2 win Wednesday night at Van Andel Arena.

Charlotte won 5-0 at Van Andel last Friday night, before the Griffins went on a two-game road winning streak with wins Saturday and Sunday night.

Mrazek made 28 saves on 30 shots to help spectacular special-teams play by Grand Rapids.

“Petr came in and played good,” head coach Jeff Blashill said. “He made a huge save in the second and we came down and and scored. Those are the types of saves he’s made in his short pro career here. He knows how to win hockey games.”

The Griffins killed off seven of eight penalties and scored on two of three power plays.

“Our penalty kill did a much better job today, so momentum can give you life and it can suck the life out of you,” Blashill said. “A couple goals against on Friday sucked the life out of us.”

Gustav Nyquist scored twice – his fourth and fifth goals of the season – while Tomas Jurco and Ryan Sproul both added a goal and an assist.

The Griffins played a man down much of the first period, nearly eight minutes, and held the Checkers to one power-play goal.

Grand Rapids first killed off a Tristan Grant penalty.

Later, Griffins captain Jeff Hoggan found his way to the penalty box with a double-minor high stick that left a Charlotte player bleeding on the ice. The four-minute penalty was 33 seconds from being killed when Checkers winger and Livonia native Aaron Palushaj slipped the puck past Mrazek.

Less than a minute after Palushaj’s goal, Jurco passed the puck to Nyquist who buried the one-timer past former top-NHL draft pick Rick DiPietro, with 3:27 left in the period.

DiPietro stopped 25 of 29 shots.

The Griffins finished off the first period by killing off a Martin Frk holding penalty.

The second period was a tad more generous to the Griffins as the team scored twice to take the lead.

The first one came 2:23 into the period when Brennan Evans launched a shot and the puck slipped by DiPietro’s left leg pad, thanks to Mitch Callahan’s deflection in front of the net.

Later, on a Griffins power play, Sproul was fed a pass from Teemu Pulkkinen and fired into the back of the seemingly empty net for his third goal of the season.

Late in the second period, Mrazek faced a barrage of Checkers shots, stopping all of them to keep the score 3-1 to head into the third period.

“I felt pretty good,” Mrazek said, noting he had some skate lace issues. “It was a hard game, and there were some they wouldn’t leave the zone. But we played really good defensively.”

Mrazek withstood another two peltings in the third period.

With a man advantage, Jurco gave the Griffins some breathing room 8:05 left in the game when he rushed the net and fired the puck at DiPietro. The puck trickled by the goalie and found its way into the far side of the net.

Fresh off killing a penalty, the Griffins gave up an even-strength goal when Charlotte forward Victor Rask flipped one into the net past Mrazek.

Nyquist added an empty-netter with 48.8 seconds left on the clock and secure the 5-2 win for the Griffins.

Blashill said the team was lucky to kill so many penalties tonight, but the team has to play smarter.

“We take way too many penalties,” he said. “If we don’t get that solved, you really tax yourselves, you put yourself in a tight spot. Some of them are just the way it happens in a game and some of them were directly a result of our fault.”

The win gives the Griffins their first home win in five games.

“We lost too many in a row at home,” Blashill said. “We have great fans, and we wanna win as many at home to take advantage of home ice as much as we can.”

The Griffins will take to the road again this weekend, with games against Lake Erie and Rockford. Even with Wednesday’s home game, the Griffins will have played four road games in seven days. The Griffins are 9-0-1-1 in their last 11 away games.

“It’s just part of the American League,” Blashill said. “We have no issue with it. We’ll go on the road and play a real tough game on Friday.”