Detroit Red Wings: A Handful of Griffins a Phone Call Away
By Bob Heyrman
The Detroit Red Wings have been lucky enough to have a strong farm system over the past five-plus seasons. The Grand Rapids Griffins have won the Calder Cup twice in their existence, once in 2013 and again in 2017.
The Detroit Red Wings have a nice group of “four A” players in Grand Rapids. The term “four A” is more of a baseball term which means a player is a top minor league player but hasn’t been able to find his way just yet in the show. An “inbetweener” so to speak. Some players play their entire career in the minors.
First a little bit of Grand Rapids Griffins history. The Griffins were actually the minor league club for the Ottawa Senators before the Detroit Red Wings. The Griffins merged into the AHL league in 2001.
The Griffins served as the Ottawa Senators minor league club from 1999-2002. From 2002 to the present day the Grand Rapids Griffins have been tied to the Detroit Red Wings.
The Detroit Red Wings have a lot of players expecting to claw for a job this fall. The younger prospects will look to unseat a veteran or two. Other youngsters will be fighting for roster spots with one another. Some will just try to avoid being sent back to junior like Michael Rasmussen. Rasmussen is expected to avoid being returned to the WHL; Ras is supposed to be a top 9 forward this year.
We often talk about the established players and the young draftees along with high-end prospects. In this article, we are going to give a few of those “four A” players some love. A phrase Don Cherry often refers to as “the black aces”. When you’re in a jam, and you need someone to step right in as a short-term solution with limited growing pains.