Griffins Advance to First Calder Cup Final

The Grand Rapids Griffins celebrate their 5-4 victory over
the Oklahoma City Barons with the home crowd at Van
Andel Arena on Wednesday night.

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. -- For the first time in its twelve year history in the AHL, the Grand Rapids Griffins will move on to play for the Calder Cup trophy. After a dramatic late loss to Oklahoma City in Game 6, many people questioned how the Griffins would play tonight in Game 7. However, a redirect by Jan Mursak put the Griffins on the board just a minute into the game to kick start the offense. The game would go back-and-forth in the first period, sending the teams into the first intermission deadlocked at 2-2.

After each team added a goal, the Griffins went into second intermission with a 3-3 tie. Twenty minutes was all that stood between the Griffins and a chance to take home the Calder Cup trophy. However, early in the third period, Taylor Fedun put the Barons back in front, 4-3. Five minutes later, however, Grand Rapids found the game-tying goal they needed when Jan Mursak rifled the puck over the shoulder of Yann Danis to tie the game at 4-4. However, following Mursak's goal, the goaltenders seemed to find their zone. That is until Tomas Jurco put a few moves on the Barons defense and whistled one by Danis to give the Griffins a 5-4 lead with 6:12 remaining in the game. The Barons would pull Danis with 53 seconds remaining, but couldn't get anything by Mrazek in the final minutes.

Following the Griffins 5-4 victory, the Griffins will advance to play the Syracuse Crunch in their first ever Calder Cup Finals. Games one and two will be held in Syracuse this Saturday and Sunday. Following those two games in Syracuse, the series will head back to Van Andel Arena for games three, four and five (if necessary). Tickets for the Calder Cup Finals will go on sale at 10 a.m. on Thursday morning and can be bought through any Star Tickets location or through griffinshockey.com .