The Rockford IceHogs’ season came to a close on Sunday night when they lost 3-1 in their Central Division semifinals series of the Calder Cup Playoffs against the Grand Rapid Griffins.
Game 1 Recap
The IceHogs lineup remained basically the same as at the end of the regular season, which did mean no Cole Guttman or Nolan Allan. Don’t read too much into the ordering of the defense pairing here — Wyatt Kaiser and Ethan Del Mastro were the top two in terms of minutes.
The IceHogs started off strong, scoring the first two goals of the game.
First, Michal Teplý was setup with a beautiful behind the net pass from Lukas Reichel to make it 1-0 a little over four minutes into the first period.
Then, Mark Hardman found a wide open Zach Stanford on the rush, who scored to double the IceHogs lead at 11:20 in the second period.
Unfortunately, the Griffins are the best third-period team in the league in terms of goals scored, and they poured on the shots and tallied twice to force the game to overtime.
Dominik Shine got the Griffins on the board just three minutes into the third. A quick pass up from Simon Edvinsson put Shine in front of the Hogs defenders and he finished with a strong power move in close to make it 2-1.
Amadeus Lambardi tied the game 2-2 with 3:25 left in regulation. Tyler Spezia passed to a trailing Lambardi, who wasn’t covered at all by the Hogs for some inexplicable reason, and his shot bled through Jaxson Stauber.
Unfortunately, the Griffins scored 4:14 into overtime thanks to Jonathan Berggren (with an assist from the referees). Brett Seney was boarded and, in the ensuing chaos and lack of a call, Berggren was able to skate the puck in and slip a shot past Stauber to make it 3-2.
Game 2 Recap
The IceHogs made just two adjustment in their lineup for game: Sanford was moved from the third line to the first line to replace Jaskson Cates as 1C, and Drew Commesso took over in net.
The Griffins opened the scoring in the second game midway through the first period. Carter Mazur’s rebound popped out to Austin Czarnik in the right circle, who was completely left open and made it 1-0 Griffins easily as a result.
The IceHogs tied the game less than a minute later after Ethan Del Mastro basically walked the puck into the zone and scored with a wrister from distance.
Mike Hardman tipped Rem Pitlick’s shot while on the power play to give the IceHogs a 2-1 lead with just a second remaining in the first.
Michal Teplý extended the IceHogs lead while on a 3-on-1 rush, making it 3-1 just 1:25 into the second period.
Hardman got his second goal of the game around four minutes into the third, this time tipping a long shot from Fiip Roos to put the IceHogs up 4-1.
Luke Philp would add another on the power play to made it 5-1 with 4:26 in the game, and that would be the final score for the night.
One other thing to note from this game: Drew Commesso had some big saves in this game despite not seeing the higher percentage of high-danger chances.
Game 3 Recap
After winning Game 2, it’s not surprising that there were no lineup changes for the third game of the series.
There was no score in the first 20 minutes, mostly in part to Commesso setting an IceHogs playoff record with a 19-save period.
Unfortunately, Marco Kasper put the Griffins up 1-0 in the opening minute of the second period after he jumped in front of two IceHog defenders to receive a behind-the-net pass from Shine and roofed the puck to beat Commesso.
The IceHogs answered with a goal in the waning seconds on the middle frame. Rem Pitlick’s initial shot hit the glass, but he knocked the rebound in out of mid-air behind Sebastian Cossa. Credit to Isaak Phillips for winning a board battle and to Zach Sanford, who made the first pass across ice to a wide open Pitlick.
The Griffins once again got on the board quickly into a period, this time Czarnik just 57 seconds into the third. Berggren set up a streaking Czarnik, who scored with a nifty move to make it 2-1.
Elmer Söderblom put the Griffins up 3-1 at 9:25 of the third after a blocked shot landed near him on the doorstep and he knocked it home.
The IceHogs then scored twice in the final four minutes to tie the game 3-3 and push it to overtime.
- On the first goal, Pitlick picked off a pass from the Griffins before getting it up to Sanford, who scored on what looked like an innocuous shot with 3:38 left in regulation.
- On the second goal, Jackson Cates shoveled home the puck with 2:39 remaining after a behind-the-net pass from David Gust. The IceHogs had a few big scrambles in front of Cossa right before this.
Unfortunately, Berggren was the overtime hero for the Griffins for the second time in the series, scoring the game-winner 9:12 into extra hockey time, and the IceHogs fell 4-3.
Game 4 Recap
Despite some struggles in Game 2 and 3, the IceHogs decided to run the same lineup in their do-or-die fourth game of the series.
It started off well, with Lukas Reichel scoring at the 14:11 mark of the first to give the IceHogs a lead. While on the power play, Del Mastro get the puck to Reichel in the high slot who shot through traffic to make it 1-0.
Before Reichel’s goal was finished being announced, the Griffins tied the game 1-1. Czarnik found Carter Mazur all alone near the dots with a quick pass, and the latter went top shelf for the goal.
Czarnik then got his own goal just 90 seconds later to put the Griffins up 2-1, skating around Phillips to shoot it off the far post and in at a horrible angle.
After a scoreless second, Berggren — who was basically the IceHogs’ boogeyman in this series — extended the Griffins lead to 3-1 five minutes into the third period. The pucks bounced off the boards to Berggren, who found just enough space upstairs to score.
Rechiel got the IceHogs within one at 6:40 in the third. A great pass diagonally across the ice to Wyatt Kaiser teed up Reichel for a quick one-timer that didn’t miss, making it 3-2.
The comeback couldn’t be complete, though, as Kasper added an empty-netter with 65 seconds left to put this one away 4-2 for the Griffins.
Notes:
- All but one game — the only one the IceHogs won — were decided by a single goal, excluding empty-netters, so it was a fairly close series.
- The Griffins were just the better team in most of the games, and the Rockford goalies kept them in it. The biggest issue with the IceHogs this series was their inability to shot suppress in the same way they had during the regular season, and that included clearing out rebounds. The IceHogs (and Blackhawks) prefer their goalies to be able to see shots, so there’s not a huge amount of blocking going on, but what they typically do well is clearing and exiting the zone to limit opponents’ opportunities. This did not happen well outside of Game 2, which the Hogs won.
- Shots were 37-22, 28-25, 42-30, and 25-23 in favor of the Griffins in each game. The Hogs had their largest single-shot period in the third of Game 4 with 12, but not many were high-danger, as the Griffins played prevent hockey after the third goal.
- It didn’t help that the Griffins were the best third-period team in the AHL this season, so they knew when and how to turn on the offense. They also arguably had the best player on both teams in Berggren, who scored the game-winning goal in every game for the Griffins.
- The series might have also been different if the absolute shitshow that was the game-winner in Game 1 overtime didn’t happen. Not only did the refs not call an obvious penalty on the Griffins for boarding Seney, but they didn’t blow the play dead when a shoving match/fight was breaking out. The Griffins still deserved to win that first game, but the way it went down was absolutely questionable.
- The second game gave a bit of hope that the Hogs could rely on the offense they found in the third quarter of the season, but the Griffins really did a good job disrupting the Hogs in Games 3 and 4.
- I said above that the Rockford goalies kept the Hogs in several of the games, and this is true, but both Stauber and Commesso had similar issues in the games they lost, including giving up too many rebounds and having issues with their timing on the goals they gave up.
- Stauber was good in the first 40 minutes of Game 1, but he was fighting it in the third and the team in front didn’t help out enough. Ultimately, his reaction time was slow on all three goals against, though I’m sure it was hard to figure out where the OT goal was going with the shooter falling.
- Commesso was pretty good in Game 2 outside of the Czarnik goal against but, like Stauber, struggled to stay composed when the Griffins started pouring on the mid and high-danger chances in the latter half of Game 3. Still, I don’t think I blame him for most of those goals –goal 2 was the iffy one — and he had some pretty big saves after some sloppy defense, so I understand not swapping him out for Stauber after the loss.
- Commesso was fine enough in Game 4, but he was slow getting his glove up on the first and the second bled through his body because he didn’t squeeze quick enough.
- Reaction time was also the main issue for Arvid Soderblom in Chicago this past season. Yes, he gave up a lot of rebounds, but most goals scored against him were first-chance opportunities through the body — a little concerning that all three of the young goalies in system have similar problems with their games.
- It also definitely hurt the Hogs to be missing both Cole Guttman and Nolan Allan for this series. Guttman because his offense might have been enough to tip some of these one-goal games to the Hogs’ favor and Allan because he was one of the best shot suppressors on the team.
- Reichel ended up with two goals and two assists in four games, his best playoff performance in the AHL yet. I wouldn’t say he looked good in every game, but when he is on, he’s really on. Reichel just needs to find how to perform consistently at his best.
- Dach battled through injuries this season, so I’m not surprised he wasn’t in the top-six, but it might have been a good idea to mix the lines up bit in the final game just to see if he could spark something. He had some jump in the games even if it did not show up offensively.
- Kaiser and Del Mastro both had solid performances overall but also a handful of miscues they’ll want to have back. Kaiser is probably ready for the next step to the NHL while Del Mastro needs a little more time to mature in the AHL.
- Phillips and Crevier had more trouble overall, mostly with some missed assignments and some mental breakdowns. Crevier likely isn’t in the Blackhawks long-term plans, but it’ll be interesting to see what happens with Phillips in the near future.
- Ultimately, this finish was disappointing because the Hogs just didn’t play their best. The chance of them losing was high because they’re so similar to the Griffins, but it felt like they didn’t perform to the best of their abilities.