Wolves Beat Postava, Griffins in Game 1

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Eduards Tralmaks, Red Wings

GRAND RAPIDS — Michal Postava continues to show why he won the Grand Rapids Griffins’ playoff goaltending job. But his strong play Thursday wasn’t enough to prevent the Chicago Wolves from winning Game 1 of their playoff series.

Josiah Slavin scored on the Wolves’ 29th shot on goal (at 6:48 of the third period) to provide the margin of victory in a 2-1 Chicago win.

Postava has now gone 25 games in the regular season and five more in the playoffs without giving up more than three goals in a game. But none of that matters if the Griffin cannot create more offense against the Wolves.

The Griffins weren’t able to pull their goalie as early as they would have liked late in the game because Michael Brandsegg-Nygard took a hooking penalty with 3:45 to go.

The Griffins are trying to avoid becoming the fourth division champion from being eliminated in the playoffs. The Providence Bruins, Laval Rocket and the Ontario Reign have all been knocked out of the postseason.

Eduards Tralmaks gave the Griffins a 1-0 lead at 14:41 of the second period when he tapped in shot from in close. It was his second goal of the postseason for the Latvian forward. Defenseman Axel Sandin Pellikka and William Lagesson drew the assists.

But the Griffins’ lineup didn’t last four minutes as Chicago answered with a power play goal by Justin Robidas.

Takeaways

This could be a physical series. In the first period, the two teams combined for 28 penalty minutes. All but four were roughing PIMs. . . Chicago goalie is the son of former forward Keith Primeau. . .The Griffins’ 33-goal scorer doesn’t yet have a goal in this postseason.