Patrick Williams, TheAHL.com Features Writer

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Slice up the regular season any which way, and the Grand Rapids Griffins probably set some sort of record.

Their 23-1-0-1 open marked the best 25-game start in AHL history. After 36 games, the season’s midpoint, they held a 30-3-2-1 record. The 40-game mark? They sat at 32-5-2-1. At 50 games, it was 40-7-2-1. They had a 15-game winning streak, the sixth-longest in the league’s 90 seasons.

They had locked up a Calder Cup Playoff berth by March 6, the earliest team to do so since the 1992-93 Binghamton Rangers powerhouse.

On and on, the milestones went. A bit of a late-season stumble slowed down the record-breaking pace, but the Griffins still finished second overall in the AHL standings 51-16-4-1 record, a .743 points percentage that cracks the list of the top 10 all-time best records in league history.

But it has been a wildly unpredictable spring across the AHL, and Grand Rapids has been right in thick of it. They lost Game 1 of their division semifinal series to Manitoba before winning three straight to take the series. And now, thanks to a pair of come-from-behind wins by Chicago at Van Andel Arena last week, the Griffins – already the only division champion left in the field after Providence, Laval and Ontario were all eliminated last round – are facing elimination in the division finals.

In Game 1, Grand Rapids and Chicago went into the third period tied before Wolves captain Josiah Slavin’s goal gave the visitors a 2-1 win. Game 2 proved to be far more galling for the Griffins, who needed all of 4 minutes and 8 seconds to take a 2-0 lead. But Chicago rallied and won it, 4-3 in overtime, on Felix Unger Sörum’s second goal of the night.

That was Saturday. Since then, the Griffins have had time to stew, digest and move forward. It has been a tense spring for the Detroit Red Wings organization after the parent club missed the Stanley Cup Playoffs with a frustrating late slide. Now the hopes of a championship run in Grand Rapids are in danger as well.

Michal Postava has taken all six starts in net this postseason for the Griffins, but if head coach Dan Watson wants to make a change they do have one Sebastian Cossa, a Detroit first-round pick and a two-time AHL All-Star, in reserve. Together Cossa and Postava combined to win the Hap Holmes Memorial Award as the Griffins allowed just 159 goals in the regular season, the fewest in the AHL.

Watson cited Postava’s excellent play down the stretch of the regular season as the reason he was tapped as their Game 1 starter, and there hasn’t been reason to waver. Postava led HC Kometa Brno to a championship in the Czech league last season before signing with Detroit, and he has a 1.82 goals-against average and a .928 save percentage in these playoffs for Grand Rapids.

Fourteen teams have lost the first two games in a best-of-five series and rallied to win it. Grand Rapids can claim one of those comebacks, knocking out Toronto in 2015. But only four teams have won after dropping the first two at home, including Milwaukee last spring against Rockford. There are no glaring reasons for the Griffins’ predicament. The power play is clicking at 33.3 percent (6-for-18). They have allowed only three power-play goals in six games. At 2.50 goals per game, the Griffins are well off their regular-season pace (3.54). But this is the postseason, where defensive play tightens up and coaching staffs have an entire series to pick apart opposing offenses.

But losing leads just can’t happen in the Calder Cup Playoffs. Grand Rapids was 38-3-1-0 in the regular season when scoring the first goal of the game. They are 0-2 in this series.

Nobody needs to remind the Griffins. They know that.

“I thought we laid off the gas when we got the lead,” captain Dominik Shine said after Game 2. “We can get the job done. I’m not concerned.”

Game 3 will be a chance to confirm those words. It’s that simple.

SPRINGFIELD, Mass. … The American Hockey League announced today that Manitoba Moose defenseman Tyrel Bauer has been selected as the winner of the Yanick Dupré Memorial Award for the 2025-26 season.

This award has been presented annually since 1998 to an AHL player for his outstanding contributions to his local community and charitable organizations. The Yanick Dupré Memorial Award winner is selected by the AHL and representatives from IOA and American Specialty from among 32 individual team Man of the Year honorees.

Bauer is a two-time recipient of the Moose’s IOA/American Specialty AHL Man of the Year team honor, having grown lasting relationships in the Winnipeg community. Notably, Bauer’s work with the Kinship and Foster Family Network of Manitoba allowed several foster families over the course of the season to attend Moose games, receive gift bags from the team and meet Bauer after the game. Bauer remains especially close with a young fan named Noah, whom Bauer and the Moose gifted with a pair of custom-modified gloves that would allow Noah to play his favorite sport.

Bauer served as a coach for a U-11 boys’ team at the Winnipeg Jets Hockey Academy, a play-based program designed to increase attendance as well as high-school graduation rates in socially and economically challenged schools in Winnipeg. He also made a series of appearances at events for Project 11 – the True North Youth Foundation’s initiative in honor of former Jets and Moose player Rick Rypien – to help educate youth on the importance of mental health, including speaking at the foundation’s annual gala.

Bauer’s additional community work this season included a classroom visit to St.Amant, a non-profit organization which supports more than 5,000 Manitobans with developmental disabilities, autism and acquired brain injury. He also participated in several full-team volunteering efforts, including holiday gift drives, school reading appearances, autograph sessions and more. And in January, Bauer and his teammates played pick-up hockey with the winners of the Moose Backyard Rink Contest.

A 24-year-old native of Cochrane, Alta., Bauer has played 214 games with the Moose over four pro seasons after being selected by the Jets in the sixth round of the 2020 NHL Draft.

The AHL’s annual Man of the Year award is named after the late Yanick Dupré, who passed away in 1997 at the age of 24 following a 16-month battle with leukemia. A second-round draft pick of the Philadelphia Flyers in 1991, Dupré played four seasons in the AHL with the Hershey Bears and was an AHL All-Star in 1995.

In operation since 1936 and celebrating its 90th-anniversary season this year, the American Hockey League continues to serve as the top development league for all 32 National Hockey League teams. Nearly 90 percent of all players competing in the NHL are AHL graduates, and through the years the American Hockey League has been home to more than 100 honored members of the Hockey Hall of Fame.

The Atlantic Division finals continue at the MassMutual Center tonight (7:05 ET, ) with Game 3 between Springfield and Wilkes-Barre/Scranton.

The Penguins were seemingly on their way to a 2-0 series lead as they carried a 3-0 cushion into the third period of Game 2 last Thursday, only to see the Thunderbirds score three times in the final frame before Akil Thomas won it in overtime.

It was Springfield’s fourth come-from-behind victory already this postseason, and their fourth OT win as well.

“We had a chat about what our game looks like,” Thunderbirds head coach Steve Ott said after Game 2. “The recipe for the way we need to play, we saw it in the third and we saw it in overtime.”

Shut out for the first five periods of the series, Springfield finally got on the board thanks to Hugh McGing’s shorthanded goal 55 seconds into the final frame of Game 2. Dillon Dube then scored twice in the last 3:24 of regulation – both with the goaltender off for an extra attacker – and Thomas got the game-winner thanks to a fluky bounce off the end boards in OT.

Springfield outshot Wilkes-Barre/Scranton 31-12 in the third period and overtime.

“We went into prevent defense (and) that’s not how we play,” Penguins head coach Kirk MacDonald said. “We’ll regroup, we’ll be fine. I don’t think there’s any sense of panic. We lost track of our identity and it bit us in the butt. We made some mistakes but at the end of the day we only gave up one five-on-five goal. We’ll get back to work and try and get better.”

The Pens built their 3-0 lead on goals by Bill Zonnon (his second in as many games as a professional), Tristan Broz and Avery Hayes.

“It’s playoffs. It’s not going to be easy,” Hayes said. “We showed that we can beat them if we play our game. We just have to learn from that.”

Wilkes-Barre/Scranton owned the third-best road record in the league in 2025-26, going 25-7-3-1 (54 points, .750). They won both of their visits to Springfield, a 3-2 win on Jan. 19 and a 7-2 victory on Feb. 18. The Thunderbirds have won seven of their last eight home games, including two overtime wins against Providence in the division semifinals.

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Chicago hosts Grand Rapids tonight (8 ET, ) with a chance to sweep the Central Division champions out of the Calder Cup Playoffs.

The Wolves erased an early 3-1 deficit to pull out a 4-3 overtime victory in Game 2 on Saturday, their second straight come-from-behind win to begin the series. Felix Unger Sörum, without a goal through Chicago’s first six playoff games, scored his second goal of the night at 5:14 of OT.

Cayden Primeau (5-2, 2.17, .923) made 36 saves, stopping the last 30 shots he faced on the night; he was also credited with an assist on the game-tying goal.

Michael Brandsegg-Nygård registered a goal and two assists in Game 2 as Grand Rapids scored three times in the opening 12:04. It would turn out to be the first time all season that the Griffins lost a game they had led after the first period (27-1-0-0).

Making his sixth consecutive start this postseason, Michal Postava (3-3, 1.82, .928) stopped 25 shots, but he allowed more than three goals in a game for the first time this season (31 combined appearances during the regular season and playoffs).

“We laid off the gas when we had the lead,” said Griffins captain Dominik Shine. “There’s games that happen like that: You play a game that you think you should win and you don’t. Sometimes you win games you shouldn’t. We collectively need to be better, and we can get the job done.”

Fourteen teams in AHL history have come back to win a best-of-five playoff series after falling behind 0-2, including four who lost the first two games on home ice.

“It’s one game at a time,” Shine added. “It’s a five-game series. It’s not over in two.”

To start off the evening, we had a patented dome field advantage at One Trop Drive. There was a thunderstorm that passed directly over Tropicana Field for about the first hour of tonight’s contest, and had it been 2025 we might not have got the ballgame in.

Tampa Bay placed seven right-handed hitters in tonight’s lineup against southpaw Trevor Rogers, and boy did it pay off.

Yandy Diaz had quite the night to say the least, finishing with four hits including two doubles, four runs, and four RBI on the night, and just missed a leadoff home run to start tonight’s ballgame.

Junior Caminero delivered the proverbial dagger with a three run homer to right field, right after a Gunnar Henderson miscue led to Baltimore only getting one out instead of two in the fifth inning. Caminero would also score two more times and walk twice tonight.

Are you sensing the pattern here? The righties swung it, and swung it well. The Flappy Boys went 9/20 with runners in scoring position, and had 15 runs by the sixth inning.

The Vilade Brigade, the new manta started by DRaysBay’s own Ben Whitelaw for the Rays’ right-handed utility man, kept on trucking. The Oklahoma native had a three-hit, three RBI night that included a triple, and Taylor Walls helped himself to three runs scored and a pair of doubles.

It would behoove me to not talk about Shane McClanahan’s efforts, as he not only got the win, but collected his 500th career strikeout.

If you thought 16 runs on 18 hits was enough to satisfy Rays fans’ palates, about 250 of the announced 13,633 fans gathered in the left field corner in the 8th inning, took their shirts off, and swung them around their heads, even prompting Raymond to hop in and participate.

The Rays conclude the night 16 games above .500, and with a 12-0 drubbing of the Braves from the Marlins, Tampa Bay is the best team in baseball.

If you don’t know by now, this team is for real. They love being around each other, they play for one another, and most importantly, they win for one another.

Garret and Andrew fire up a fast paced round of Boomin’ Bench Bust, putting dynasty favorites into three buckets and forcing clear takes instead of the usual keep trade cut hedging. Garret frames it as a gut check game, and Andrew leans into ceiling and situation, even when it means making uncomfortable calls on big names.

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Wide receiver and quarterback calls get spicy

The show opens with a tricky wide receiver trio where Andrew crowns George Pickens as the boom, slots Garrett Wilson as the bench, and tags Chris Olave as the bust based on target competition. Garret counters by calling Garrett Wilson his boom and pushing Pickens into bust territory due to volatility and situational risk. At quarterback, both agree Joe Burrow carries the biggest boom profile, but they split on the bench bust debate between Patrick Mahomes and Justin Herbert, with Garret worried about Herbert’s volume under Harbaugh.

Running backs, tight ends, and QB2s

At running back, both side with Kenneth Walker as the boom over Breece Hall and Quinshon Judkins, then align again on a second trio by making Javonte Williams the boom and fading Josh Jacobs. Tight end debate follows, with both landing on Sam LaPorta as the bust, while Garret pushes Kyle Pitts as his boom. The episode closes with a fun QB2 swing where Andrew bets on Ty Simpson as the long play boom, while Garret plants a flag on Daniel Jones as a potential career resurgence.

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Cedric Mullins got off to a relatively slow start as a Tampa Bay Ray and some fans were concerned he’d never recover. However, a strong stretch in May suggests Mullins is still largely the same player he has been throughout his career.

Let’s compare Mullins’s profile for his Major League career through 2025 with what he’s showing so far this season. Zone minus out-of-zone swing rate is a good measurement for swing decisions, contact rate reflects bat-to-ball skills, EV90 is the industry standard for power, and flyball plus line drive rate helps show how often a player is getting the ball in the air at optimal launch angles:

The underlying key performance indicators show Mullins is the same player as he has always been. One thing to note here is that 154 plate appearances is not nearly enough of a sample for batted ball angles to stabilize, so we can expect that to continue to decrease to his career norm. This is actually a positive regression candidate; Mullins isn’t a true power hitter, so turning some of those fly balls into line drives would likely improve his overall offensive output.

The biggest difference for the turnaround in Mullins’s production is BABIP luck. This can be considered a lazy way to analyze a player, but in this case it’s appropriate. Mullins had a .139 BABIP through April but is now running a .343 BABIP in May. Both BABIP marks – and the corresponding swings in wRC+ – are almost certainly unsustainable. Based on his profile, Mullins is not going to be 87% worse than league average, nor will he continue to be 21% better than league average. He’s likely to land around his career average of 102 wRC+ and be a roughly league average hitter. He may end up a bit higher than that as he’s almost exclusively being used as a strong-side platoon player at this stage of his career.

Roughly league average offensive production with above average base running and defense in centerfield is a valuable player to have on a roster with playoff aspirations. Mullins is also valuable in the clubhouse as a veteran leader and mentor. As long as he stays healthy, there’s little in the underlying data to suggest meaningful concern going forward.

Chase Bradley recorded two goals and an assist as Colorado defeated Coachella Valley, 4-1, to take a 2-1 series lead in the Pacific Division finals on Sunday night at Blue Arena.

The Eagles will look to wrap up the best-of-five series with another win in Game 4 on Wednesday.

Colorado swarmed the Firebirds all night, forechecking and creating turnovers that led to each of their four goals.

First, Tye Felhaber forced a turnover in the Eagles’ offensive zone and Ivan Ivan quickly found Bradley alone in front for a redirection over the glove of Nikke Kokko. That tied the game at 1-1 with 11:17 left in the second period.

The line struck again 33 seconds into the third period as they created another turnover behind the Firebirds net and cycled the puck down low before Ivan found Bradley, who again chipped it past Kokko for a 2-1 Colorado lead.

At 4:28, Alex Barré-Boulet pressured and knocked down a clearing attempt at the half wall. He fed Gavin Brindley alone in front, and Brindley backhanded a shot home to make it 3-1.

Less than three minutes later, as a Firebirds power play was expiring, Bradley stole the puck at the Eagles’ blue line and passed it ahead to Brindley as he stepped out of the penalty box. Brindley sent it to T.J. Hughes, who scored his second goal of the series and third of the postseason.

Trent Miner (7-2) finished with 24 saves for Colorado, allowing only a Lleyton Roed shorthanded goal 14:46 into the game.

Kokko (6-5) stopped 32 shots for Coachella Valley.

(Colorado leads series, 2-1)
Game 1 – Wed., May 13 – Colorado 3, COACHELLA VALLEY 0
Game 2 – Fri., May 15 – COACHELLA VALLEY 4, Colorado 0
Game 3 – Sun., May 17 – COLORADO 4, Coachella Valley 1
Game 4 – Wed., May 20 – Coachella Valley at Colorado, 9:05
*Game 5 – Fri., May 22 – Coachella Valley at Colorado, 9:05
*if necessary… All times Eastern