Jeff Blashill brought the Griffins to new heights during the 2012-13 season, guiding the team to its first Calder Cup championship.

There’s a litany of factors that make prognosticating an American Hockey League season a nearly impossible task.

So we can forgive The Hockey News – a staple in the media diet of diehard hockey fans since 1947 – for a slight error in judgment in Volume 66, Issue 8, published on Nov. 5, 2012.

After all, they were spot on with other season predictions. Their top team in the Eastern Conference, the Syracuse Crunch, was runner-up in the Calder Cup Finals. In the West, they projected the Oklahoma City Barons as first in the conference, followed by the Toronto Marlies. Those teams were dispatched in the Western Conference Finals and Western Conference Semifinals, respectively.

As for the team that defeated all three juggernauts? None other than the Grand Rapids Griffins, who captured the first Calder Cup in franchise history after being projected by THN to finish 15th in the conference – dead last.

“I didn’t play the card of ‘us against everybody,’” said Jeff Blashill, the current Chicago Blackhawks and former Detroit Red Wings head coach who was in his first season as the Griffins’ bench boss in 2012-13. “It was more about making sure players have winning habits and learning what it takes to move on to become an NHL player. We wanted to come in and help our guys become the very best version of themselves, and hopefully in doing so, we’d have a good team.”

That last-place projection was posted in the Griffins’ dressing room for a time, though Blashill said he was not involved in putting it up. Still, it was emblematic of the expectations for the organization at the time, as the team had missed the postseason in three straight and four of the five previous seasons.

AHL rosters often undergo heavy turnover year-to-year, so, understandably, analysts can doubt the lack of recent success, influx of first-year players, new head coach, and uncertainty about the makeup of the league itself. The NHL had locked out its players, leaving some top talent that would have otherwise been in the NHL playing in the AHL. 

“The league itself was very, very talented,” said Blashill. “I remember Oklahoma City had some really good young players, like Ryan Nugent-Hopkins and Taylor Hall, who would have been up in Edmonton. You didn’t have the same daily player movement once the season started. You could really focus on your team. The guys who were down with us, they didn’t have anywhere else to go, so it’s not like they were wishing they were in Detroit. It was a unique time and probably advantageous for me in taking over a new team.”

The historic run wasn’t an immediate success, with the Griffins sputtering to a 2-4-1-1 start. They quickly righted the ship with an eight-game winning streak and stayed in the mix for a playoff spot for the duration of the season. Blashill credits the team’s selfless veteran core in helping the team come together.

“A good friend of mine, Rob Facca, who’s now a scout for the Blackhawks, gave me Jeff Hoggan’s name and put a stamp that he was my kind of player and person,” Blashill said. “He had all the kind of winning fundamentals that I wanted to preach. To be able to add him and then name him captain, that allowed me to have an extension of the coaching staff in the locker room, in that he believed in the core values we believed in as a staff.”

“And he wasn’t alone, guys like Nathan Paetsch and Brennan Evans were great leaders and bought into what we were trying to get across,” continued Blashill. “All of those guys, with Triston Grant, Francis Pare, they were great ‘papa bears’ for our young players. Sometimes, veterans can hold young players down because they want to keep their spots, but our guys had great character. They wanted to see the young players grow.”

A highlight of the regular season occurred in mid-January, when the Griffins defeated the Rockford IceHogs 11-6 in a game that featured a bench-clearing brawl and a goalie fight. Penalty-minute records and suspensions ensued, but it left no doubt in the dressing room that the team had each other’s backs.

“It was a huge bonding moment, because it happened organically,” said Blashill. “I didn’t see anything like that happening heading into the game. We just got out to a big lead and, for whatever reason, that happened. Teams can bond in a lot of ways, and sometimes you bond through struggle. When you have a bench-clearing brawl, there’s struggle involved. I remember thinking on the way home that it was a critical moment.”

The difficulty level only increased down the stretch. The Griffins narrowly held off the Milwaukee Admirals for a Midwest Division title, winning just five of their final 17 games. With the likes of Gustav Nyquist, Joakim Andersson, Tomas Tatar and Brian Lashoff all seeing extended time in Detroit, the team’s depth was tested.

“We weren’t the best team in the regular season; we improved incrementally,” said Blashill. “I don’t think even when the season ended that anyone was going to say, ‘The Griffins are going to win the Calder Cup.’ We just progressively got better, and it’s a credit to our players for the work they put in and the belief they had in what we were doing.”

Facing the Houston Aeros in the first round was no easy task. Darcy Kuemper, currently of the Los Angeles Kings, was the Aeros’ starting goaltender and blanked the Griffins in Game 1. However, an injury among with the parent Minnesota Wild’s goalie stable led to Kuemper’s NHL recall, and Grand Rapids won the series 3-2, including a 7-0 rout in the deciding fifth game.

“It was the beginning of some fortunate things that happened for us, and nobody wants to admit it, but you need luck to be on your side a bit,” said Blashill. “I remember going into Game 5 thinking that we had been the better team for sure, but we had to go out and play our best, because it would have been a shame not to win that series. Thankfully, we won it in pretty convincing fashion.”

Each series would end up going long, with the Griffins playing 24 of a possible 26 postseason games – totaling 100 games on the year after playing a 76-game regular season. In the second round, the team faced a stiff test against a Toronto Marlies club that was near the top of the standings from wire to wire.

“Toronto had been really good all year and was kind of a rival,” Blashill said. “You could see us gain confidence as to exactly how good we can be throughout that series. We could see that, ‘Hey, we’re right there with one of the best in the league.’”

After dispatching the Marlies in six games, the tightest series may have been against Oklahoma City, then led by future Griffins head coach Todd Nelson – who, as a defenseman, had been the first player signed by Grand Rapids before its inaugural 1996 season. Game 4 on the road was postponed by a devastating tornado that hit Oklahoma City, just as Nyquist and Andersson were returning to the Griffins’ lineup after the Red Wings’ loss to Chicago in the Stanley Cup Playoffs.

“The unforeseen event of the tornado really impacted the timing of our series,” said Blashill. “As a result, our guys coming back from the NHL had time to take a breath. We were down 2-1 and were able to climb back into the series. We could have closed it out in Game 6 with a late lead, but we lost in regulation. I remember being in my office with Kris Draper and Chris Osgood. Both of those guys were saying, ‘Blash, tell your players that we’d do anything to be in that Game 7 tomorrow.’”

The Griffins rose to the occasion in Game 7 at Van Andel Arena. After Jan Mursak tied the game 4-4 early in the third period, Tomas Jurco scored the series-clinching goal to send Grand Rapids to the Finals. Awaiting the Griffins were the Syracuse Crunch, largely comprised of players who won the 2012 Calder Cup with the Norfolk Admirals, as Tampa Bay had switched its affiliation. 

“At the time, we didn’t play anyone in the Eastern Conference and really had no comparables, so if I didn’t know Jon Cooper, I wouldn’t have known much about the team,” Blashill said of his longtime friend, who had been elevated from Syracuse to Tampa Bay during the 2012-13 season. “We were able to win those first two games [in Syracuse], walking out of there feeling like we were in a pretty good spot.”

Unlike the back-and-forth of the previous three series, the Griffins jumped out to a 3-0 series lead, earning two opportunities to win the Cup on home ice. However, Syracuse denied them that magic moment twice, sending the series back to Syracuse for Game 6.

“They were stronger than the 3-0 series lead indicated,” said Blashill. “Those games were super close, and we just happened to win all three. They had a mantra of ‘Don’t let us win one.’ Then it was, ‘It’s a long bus ride back to Syracuse.’ I do remember chuckling a bit because we already knew the Red Wings had very graciously allowed us to use their team plane. That gave us a chance to reset and have some more time at home. The only regret is not being able to win it in front of our fans. It was a similar feeling to Game 7 with Oklahoma City; we turned a negative into what a great opportunity it was.”

On June 18, 2013, the Griffins finally accomplished what they had been chasing since 1996, capturing a championship trophy. Grand Rapids won Game 6 by a 5-2 score, with veteran Brennan Evans – goalless in 76 regular-season games – scoring the game-winning goal midway through the third.

“Brennan was such a good guy, good person, good player for us all year,” said Blashill. “It was fitting for a player like him to score since we had so many no-ego guys. Even the guys like Nyquist coming back from the NHL, they came back with no ego, they wanted to win. At the end of the game, when I knew we had won, it was the greatest feeling.”

A joyous on-ice celebration and plane ride to Grand Rapids followed, with the team taking full advantage of the time to celebrate its monumental accomplishment before parting ways for the summer. For Blashill, it’s the small moments of how the team came together that stick with him.

“We were having a small get-together with just the team,” he said. “I’m sitting at the bar with Triston Grant. I didn’t know him at all before I took the job, but he was a fun guy to be around. We were talking about the year, and it just set in on how lucky I was to coach such a good group of people. It was one of those moments where you know you’ve all bonded, you’re all connected. That stands out to me.”

Kyle Kujawa is a Grand Valley State University graduate and lifelong hockey fan who enjoyed a 12-year career in sports that began as a public relations intern with the Griffins in 2010. After two seasons (and one Calder Cup!) as a full-timer, he moved on to the Detroit Red Wings’ PR staff, where he spent nine seasons (2013-22). He turned in his press credentials for the corporate world in 2022 but has remained involved in hockey through various freelance writing gigs, coming full circle with an opportunity to contribute to Griffiti. 

Photo by Mark Newman