Griffins at Rampage
First of eight meetings overall, first of four at the AT&T Center…The Rampage begin their first season as the primary affiliate of the St. Louis Blues…After getting swept in all four meetings during the 2015-16 season, the Griffins have won the last eight overall against San Antonio and outscored the Rampage 41-15 in that span…Grand Rapids has points in seven of its last 10 at the AT&T Center (5-3-1-1)…Second-year Griffin Turner Elson spent the 2016-17 season with San Antonio and scored three points (1-2—3) while being limited to 13 games due to injury…First-year Griffin Wade Megan made his AHL debut with the Rampage on March 28, 2013 versus Grand Rapids and went on to total 31 points (20-11—31) in 115 games with San Antonio from 2012-15.

WOOD 106.9 FM/1300 AM Returns as Flagship Station
Hear Bob Kaser call Labatt Griffins Hockey all season long on WOOD 106.9 FM/1300 AM, which begins its 23rd season as the team's flagship station.

Entering Saturday
Grand Rapids concludes its season-opening two-game road swing at San Antonio tonight. The Griffins are starting a schedule with two straight away contests for the first time since 2015-16 when Grand Rapids opened at Bakersfield and San Diego. Five of the Griffins’ eight games in October will come on the road. After tonight, Grand Rapids is off until Friday, Oct. 12, when the Griffins will open the home portion of their schedule against the Hershey Bears.

Last Game (Friday): Griffins 1 at Stars 3
Head coaches in their first game behind the Griffins’ bench show a 4-5-1-1 record…Filip Zadina, the sixth overall selection in the 2018 NHL Entry Draft and highest Red Wings draft pick to ever play for the Griffins, made his North American professional debut…Carter Camper, Jake Chelios, Marcus Crawford, Trevor Hamilton, Wade Megan, Harri Sateri, Mackenze Stewart, Chris Terry and Zadina all made their Griffins debuts…Texas goaltender Landon Bow has stopped 135-of-142 shots (0.951) and shows a 3-0-1 record in five career games against the Griffins…Grand Rapids drops to 13-7-2-1 all time in season openers and 14-7-2-0 in road openers...Grand Rapids’ lineup featured six AHL rookies.

Simon Says
Ben Simon begins his first season as Grand Rapids’ head coach after being named the 11th head coach in franchise history on June 5. Simon spent the previous three seasons as an assistant with the Griffins under Todd Nelson, who was hired by the Dallas Stars as an assistant coach in May. During Simon’s three seasons as a Grand Rapids assistant, the Griffins posted the third-most regular season victories in the AHL and won the franchise’s second Calder Cup in 2017. Appearing in 21 games and scoring nine points (4-5—9) with the Griffins in 2006-07 as part of an 11-year professional playing career, Simon is the third former Griffins player to serve as Grand Rapids’ head coach, joining Nelson and Danton Cole (2002-05).

Z Debuts
The sixth overall selection in the 2018 NHL Entry Draft by Detroit, Filip Zadina made his North American professional debut last night. The 18-year-old Zadina is the highest Red Wings draft pick ever to suit up for the Griffins. Only three players in Griffins history were drafted higher than No. 6: Jason Spezza (No. 2 by Ottawa in 2001), Darrin Shannon (No. 4 by Pittsburgh in 1988) and Stephen Weiss (No. 4 by Florida in 2001). Dylan Larkin (selected 15th overall in the 2014 Draft) was the previous highest Red Wings draft selection to play for Grand Rapids.

Father-Son Combo
Jake Chelios made his Griffins debut last night. Jake and his father, Chris Chelios, are the first father and son duo to both play for Grand Rapids during their careers. As part of his 26-year Hall of Fame career from 1983-2010, Chris appeared in two games with Grand Rapids during the 2008-09 campaign.

Assistant to Head
Ben Simon is the fourth former Griffins assistant to then become the head coach. The previous three, Danton Cole, Greg Ireland and Todd Nelson, all qualified for the postseason in their first full campaign. After serving as an assistant from 1999-2001, Cole led Grand Rapids to a 48-22-8-2 record and a first-place division finish as the head coach in 2002-03. Ireland served as an assistant from 2003-05 before helping the club to a franchise-record 55 victories and the league’s best record in 2005-06. Nelson assisted the Griffins in 2002-03 and guided the team to a fourth-place finish in the Central Division in 2015-16.

Captains
The 12th captain in franchise history, Matthew Ford embarks on his second campaign wearing the “C.” The third-year Griffin will be joined by alternate captains Brian Lashoff, Dylan McIlrath, Wade Megan and Chris Terry.

Roster Turnover
With free agents Tom McCollum (Milwaukee Admirals) and Jared Coreau (Anaheim Ducks) joining different organizations in the offseason, the Griffins begin a season without their top two goaltenders (in terms of games played) from the previous season for only the third time in franchise history. The other instances came in 2002-03 during the club’s first affiliation year with Detroit, and in 1999-00, the team’s first campaign affiliated with Ottawa. Grand Rapids is also starting the season without three of its top four scorers from 2017-18. Matt Puempel, who scored 54 points in 57 games with Grand Rapids, is the lone returner out of Ben Street (Anaheim Ducks), Matt Lorito (New York Islanders) and Eric Tangradi (New Jersey Devils). The last time Grand Rapids started a season without three of its top four scorers from the previous campaign came at the beginning of the 2015-16 season, when only Andy Miele returned out of a group of Teemu Pulkkinen, Landon Ferraro and Kevin Porter.

Reinforcements
Grand Rapids bolsters its lineup with a trio of new veterans who have been league leaders or are coming off career highs in recent years. Chris Terry took home the John B. Sollenberger Trophy as the AHL’s leading scorer last season with a career-high 71 points in 62 games with the Laval Rocket. Wade Megan won the Willie Marshall Award as the circuit’s top goal scorer in 2016-17 with 33 in 73 appearances with the Chicago Wolves. Carter Camper posted a career-best 61 points in 68 games between Cleveland and Tucson last season.

More Reinforcements
The Griffins solidified the back end of their defense with a pair of free-agent newcomers in net, Harri Sateri and Patrik Rybar. Sateri placed third and sixth in the AHL last season in save percentage (0.927) and goals against average (2.30), respectively, while appearing in 29 games with Springfield. In his first NHL action last season with Florida, Sateri finished with a 4-4 record, a 2.92 GAA and a 0.911 save percentage in nine games. Rybar led the Czech Extraliga in both GAA (1.73) and shutouts (7), while ranking second in save percentage (0.932) in 36 games with Hradec Kralove last season. This season marks Rybar’s first in North America.

Adding to the List
Former Griffins Dennis Cholowski, Filip Hronek and Libor Sulak all made their NHL and Red Wings debut in Thursday’s 3-2 overtime loss to Columbus. With those three added to the list, the number of Griffins alumni to play in the NHL has increased to 171. Thursday marked the first time that three former Griffins made their NHL debuts on the same night.

Rookies
The Griffins have six players who are in their first full professional season including defensemen Marcus Crawford and Trevor Hamilton, and forwards David Pope, Givani Smith, Trevor Yates and Filip Zadina.

GRG → DRW
Eighteen former Griffins players begin the season on the Red Wings’ active roster, including: Justin Abdelkader, Andreas Athanasiou, Tyler Bertuzzi, Dennis Cholowski, Danny DeKeyser, Jonathan Ericsson, Martin Frk, Luke Glendening, Darren Helm, Joe Hicketts, Jimmy Howard, Filip Hronek, Nick Jensen, Niklas Kronwall, Dylan Larkin, Anthony Mantha, Gustav Nyquist and Libor Sulak.

Photo at top by Sam Iannamico