Author: George Malik

The Grand Rapids Griffins won a 1-0 shootout decision over the Cleveland Monsters on Thursday night, and they did so thanks to 31 regulation and OT saves and 3 shootout saves from Ville Husso.

Joe Snively scored the only shootout goal for either team, and, in a lovely bit of symmetry, the Red Wings and Griffins swept Ohio’s Columbus-affiliated teams on Thursday evening.

Here’s the Griffins website’s recap:

CLEVELAND — In a 1-0 shootout victory for the Grand Rapids Griffins on Thursday at the Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse, goaltender Ville Husso saved 31 shots, shutting out the Cleveland Monsters while Joe Snively scored the shootout-winner. The win marked the Griffins’ second 1-0 shootout victory on the road in franchise history and their first in more than a quarter-century, as their previous win came on April 18, 1999, when Neil Little posted 22 saves at Detroit. 

Husso increased his record to 6-1-0 with his second shutout of the season, improving to a .935 save percentage and a 1.86 goals-against average.Snively’s shootout-winner gave the Griffins’ their fourth shootout victory of the year. Grand Rapids is undefeated in the shootout this season (4-0). The Griffins’ penalty kill denied all power-play scoring attempts (3-for-3, 100%), as Grand Rapids collected its 20th win. In three straight games against the Monsters, Grand Rapids earned wins in all three (3-0-0-0) while outscoring Cleveland 11-2 in three contests.

Of Red Wings prospect-related note at the World Junior Championship, where the Quarterfinal playoff rounds were played on Thursday:

Axel Sandin Pellikka had an assist, finishing at +1 with 4 shots in 22:19 played as Sweden defeated Latvia 3-2, but the Swedish captain told IIHF.com’s Lukas Aykroyd that the team is not satisfied simply playing for a chance to play for gold:

Sweden, which earned its all-time record 12th silver medal at last year’s World Juniors in Gothenburg, will compete in the final four for the fourth straight time. Their last gold medal came in 2012 in Calgary with a 1-0 overtime win over the Russians.

“It feels good, ” said Swedish captain Axel Sandin Pellikka. “Obviously we won the game, so that’s what we’re going for and we’re now looking forward to the semis.”

On a day that he wasn’t the superstar story of the tournament, Sandin Pellikka deferred credit to one of his centermen while speaking to NHL.com:

David Edstrom (Nashville Predators) scored and Sweden held off a Latvia rally to advance to the semifinals.

“He’s been awesome,” Sweden captain Axel Sandin-Pellikka (Detroit Red Wings) said of Edstrom. “It feels like he wins every face-off. He’s really important. He fights hard, he always wants to win the puck battles. He’s awesome.”

Axel Sandin Pellikka(1st round’23)
1 Assist +1 4SOG 22:19 TOI 3-2 W

Another impressive performance. ASP had some good 1v1 defense in transition. Primary assist+Shots through traffic. He’s yet to be on the ice for a 5v5 goal against this tournament #LGRW #skeaik #WorldJuniors2025 pic.twitter.com/DOIkg2sYsP

— Red Wings Prospects (@LGRWProspects) January 2, 2025

Here are the Sweden-Latvia highlights…

The Detroit Red Wings played resilient hockey on Thursday night, taking a 5-4 decision over the Columbus Blue Jackets, earning the team’s 3rd straight win in the process.

Columbus and the Blue Jackets actually had an excellent game against the Wings, sweeping away 3-1 and 4-3 deficits, but Detroit dug deeper, and with Saturday’s barometer game against the Mighty Winnipeg Jets on the horizon, the Red Wings displayed the kind of resolve necessary to play against teams that can match, if not exceed their skill sets.

How often do you see a failed goal challenge result in this?

On Thursday night, the Red Wings were resilient and hard-working enough to overcome both the Blue Jackets’ efforts and their own mistakes, and the final goal left the Blue Jackets particularly deflated, as they told the Columbus Dispatch’s Brian Hedger:

The Detroit Red Wings embarked upon a modest road trip in the Buckeye State on Thursday night, facing off against the 16-16-and-4 Columbus Blue Jackets. The Wings were hoping to earn their third straight win against a streaking Columbus team.

On Thursday evening, the Red Wings did anything but win conventionally, but they earned a 5-4 victory over the Columbus Blue Jackets, and head into Winnipeg with a 3-and-1 record under coach McLellan.

Patrick Kane, Erik Gustafsson and Alex DeBrincat rallied Detroit from a 1-0 deficit to take a 3-1 lead, Detroit lost that lead, Larkin helped the Wings push ahead 4-3 with a PPG at 4:54 of the 3rd, James van Riemsdyk scored a contested marker with 2:41 remaining, and the Wings challenged the goal–and lost–but Jonatan Berggren raced out of the penalty box and scored the gamer with 36 seconds remaining, finishing a wild 5-4 game.

Detroit went 2-for-3 in 3:03 of PP time, killed 1 of 2 Blue Jackets power plays, and Cam Talbot may have given up 4 goals on 25 shots, but he was excellent–as were the Wings, when they did not sit on their lead, at least.

The Detroit News’s Ted Kulfan spoke with Red Wings coach Todd McLellan and defenseman Moritz Seider about the latter’s 284-game iron man streak:

“You used Nick Lidstrom’s name, and I’m familiar with him obviously,” said coach Todd McLellan, who was an assistant coach with the Wings for three seasons during Lidstrom’s career. “Hopefully 20 years or so from now we’re talking about Mo in the same breath as Nick. The simple fact (Seider) can be that durable at a young age, and play as hard as he does, speaks volumes. That was certainly Nicklas Lidstrom from a durability standpoint.”

If there’s ever been a game Seider has come close to missing, he wouldn’t say on Thursday. In his mind, it’s more important to continue to be available and consistent in the lineup.

“Hopefully I can just maintain that and be available,” said Seider, who won the NHL’s Calder Trophy in 2022 and was rewarded with a seven-year contract worth $59.85 million in September. “It’s nice (the streak). I take pride in going out there every single day. I’m just trying to work hard and hopefully there are many more to come.”

Still only 23, Seider has always been diligent in the weight room and his work habits off and on the ice. To that end, always a rink rat, Seider has been willing lately to stay off the ice if he feels his body needs a rest.

“As the years go on you kind of learn how to manage your game properly and take the rest when it’s needed,” Seider said. “Definitely doing a pretty good job of that. (The streak) means a lot. You want to be out there and going into the battle with the guys every single night. You try to do that more nights than others.”

Continued

The Free Press’s Helene St. James found that new Red Wings coach Todd McLellan had an odd metaphor with which to describe his affection for his first NHL employer:

“I hope it’s not going to be a degrading comment for younger players or coaches that come into the league, but I always say you come into the league in diapers,” McLellan said Thursday. “And you grow up in that family, that family means a lot to you.

“I got into the league in diapers and your first set of diapers is the one that you really latch on to. Players are very loyal to their first team. Once they get to teams two or three, now they’re willing to move around and move their families, but they’re very loyal to their first teams. Coaches are like that, too.”

His first time with the Wings, they were playing at Joe Louis Arena and the roster featured such luminaries as Nicklas Lidström, Pavel Datsyuk, Henrik Zetterberg and Niklas Kronwall. That memory came up New Year’s Eve, when the Wings hosted the Pittsburgh Penguins.

Everyone from the Wings’ 2008 Stanley Cup championship team is long retired, but the Penguins still boast Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin. That night in 2008 when the Wings won was on McLellan’s mind as he shared a memory with new assistant coach Trent Yawney.

“I said to Trent Yawney, ‘I think it was after the game against Pittsburgh, the last time the Red Wings played the Pittsburgh Penguins and I was involved was in Pittsburgh in ’08. And we won in Game 6,'” McLellan said. “I got to the airport (Wednesday) and we go to generally the same hangar – I think we were one shy of where it was.

“But when we landed, I said, ‘Yawns, when we came back from Pittsburgh, we landed and we had our Stanley Cup part in that building.’ That’s how memories work. So it’s really unique.”

Continued

The Free Press’s Helene St. James posted a 4:45 clip of her pre-game “scrum” interview with Red Wings coach Todd McLellan:

You can also watch the Blue Jackets’ pre-game interview with Dean Evason here.

I’ve tried to NOT pay attention to power rankings of late, because Wing-bashing is rampant around the internet at present, but we’ll make an exception for Sportsnet’s Ryan Dixon, who offers this “New Year’s Resolution” for the Red Wings:

27. Detroit Red Wings (15-18-4) Figure out a way to play the smothering, two-way game the Wings used to feature when new coach Todd McLellan was an assistant in Detroit for three years coming out of the 2004-05 lockout. Granted, that’ll be a tough assignment with no Pavel Datsyuk or Henrik Zetterberg around.

Continued; in all honesty, the Red Wings are going to have to learn McLellan’s system to some extent–though he’s going to have to adapt it to the Wings’ roster, too.

He’s not a Babcock clone, however, so there’s a bit more offensive flow to the McLellan-Yawney regime systems, as we’ve seen thus far. It’s not going to be trap-trap-trap all the time.

Detroit Hockey Now’s Kevin Allen offers five facts of note regarding the Red Wings’ AHL affiliate, the Grand Rapids Griffins:

1. Defenseman Antti Tuomisto: Don’t sleep on this Red Wings’ 6-foot-5 defenseman. He leads all Grand Rapids defensemen with 14 points, and he has 10 of those points in the last 11 games. He has taken a significant step in his development under coach Dan Watson.

2. Three Goalies in GR: Sebastian Cossa hasn’t played since Dec. 22. Ville Husso and Jack Campbell have been in the net for the last two wins against Cleveland. Cossa has played 58% (18 of 31).

The San Diego native ranks sixth in the AHL in minutes played (1,063:16), tied for seventh in games played (18), 10th in GAA (2.31), tied for fifth in wins (10), and ninth in save percentage (.919)

3. Soderblom Heating Up? The Red Wings would like more from the 6-foot-8 forward, and he currently owns a three-game points streak with a goal, two assists, eight shots on goal, a fighting major, nine penalty minutes and a plus-3 plus-minus.

Continued

The Detroit Red Wings face the Columbus Blue Jackets tonight at Nationwide Arena (7 PM EST start on FanDuel SportsNet Detroit/FanDuel SportsNet Columbus/97.1 FM), and the Red Wings will start Cam Talbot opposite Elvis Merzlikins in goal tonight, with the Blue Jackets going with an 11-forwards-and-7-defensemen lineup.

After the Wings’ morning skate, defensemen Ben Chiarot and Moritz Seider, as well as coach Todd McLellan, spoke with the media: