It was announced that Soderblom and Gustafsson are on the shelf with injury. Soderblom is day to day and Gustafsson is being spoken about as “long term” in the link above.
For that past few months, we’ve talked about brining up Tuomisto, Wallinder, Lombardi (when healthy) and Mazur. Mazur did get the call and one shift later was back on IR. For this situation, Soderblom had been playing on the top line. He was starting to find footing with Larkin and Raymond and unfortunately got hurt (again). Calling up Watson is another big body, but not likely to get top line minutes. It feels like giving Lombardi a look would have been a great opportunity.
As for Rafferty, it’s hard not to think that Tuomisto or Wallinder should have been on that ticket. Both have taken steps forward and coach Watson is no small part of that. This leads me to my own “devil’s advocate” on this.
Detroit is in a chase in large part to McLellan getting 17-5-2 out of the squad before the break. In 24 games, there were only 5 regulation losses and 2 one point games. Two 7 game win streaks. That was an insane ride and a lot of fun. Post break, it’s been harder to piece together a run. It seems like the opportunity to bring up a forward that could show some scoring prowess similar to Kasper, and if not sidelined may well have been a callup earlier, was a big one. Here’s the flip side. Grand Rapids is a special team this year. Before the switch, the atmosphere was far more conducive to development and growth. Detroit’s start also made Sandin-Pellikka’s decision to stay in Sweden an easier pill. He now owns a few more records and had a chance to raise his stock.
Grand Rapids was built on a different philosophy. I’m going to re-embed the Dan Watson interview if you missed it. The big takeaway for me, personally, was that he focused far less on scouting and far more on internal work ethic. Hard skates, take care of your business and it will translate to the game. Stop thinking so much about the other team’s tendencies and work on your execution. Insanely refreshing and, pardon the language, kind of bad a**. Coach Watson impressed me deeply as someone who loves this game. He was also frank about players with the “it” factor. “They hate losing more than they love winning”. Nice.
So, part of me wants to see Grand Rapids have the strongest lineup possible and have a fantastic post season. Part of me wants those top players up in Detroit now. The success of Grand Rapids seems more attainable because of a solid start and strong philosophy. Detroit got a big bump and will fight it out until the end. Bring up a player and they get hurt in the chaos, that sucks. So, let me know your thoughts. There’s a balance somewhere, and a selfish part of me wants to see the winged wheel on those Griffins. At the same time Grand Rapids could be setting up for one heck of a post season. Is it better to have the success and finish out the program or squeeze into this final rush?
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