The playoffs are over for Detroit Red Wings’ top farm team.
The Grand Rapids Griffins, owners of a franchise-record start to the AHL season and the league’s second-best record before the postseason, lasted two rounds and eight games.
They were thwarted in the Calder Cup Central Division finals by the Chicago Wolves, falling, 3-2, on Thursday, May 21, at Allstate Arena in Rosemont, Illinois.
The Wolves – the AHL affiliate of the Carolina Hurricanes (who opened the NHL’s Eastern Conference finals on Thursday as well) – claimed the best-of-five series in four games, with the Griffins facing elimination after dropping the first two games on their home ice.
Michael Brandsegg-Nygård steps up
While it’s a disappointing finish for a team that lost just once in regulation over its first 32 games this season, it did provide valuable experience for top Wings prospects Michael Brandsegg-Nygård and Axel Sandin-Pellikka.
Brandsegg-Nygård, a 2024 first-round pick (No. 15 overall), scored in the final minute Thursday, just two nights after a clutch goal in overtime. The 20-year-old forward – the NHL’s first-ever first-round pick out of Norway – finished with eight points in eight games. Sandin-Pellikka, a 2023 first-round pick (No. 17) out of Sweden, tallied four points in the series.
Brandsegg-Nygård finished the 2025-26 season with an assist in 14 games with the Red Wings, though he delivered physical play in his final two games – seven hits against the Florida Panthers and Tampa Bay Lightning. He continued the big-body action – at 6 feet 1 and 210 pounds – in the AHL postseason
Carter Mazur, a third-round pick from 2023 (No. 70) out of the University of Denver, had back-to-back two-goal performances to close out the semifinal series against the Manitoba Moose. He finished with six points in the playoffs.
That the Griffins didn’t go any further had a great deal to do with Wolves goaltender Cayden Primeau, son of former Wings standout Keith Primeau. The 26-year-old Farmington Hills native made 42 saves and forced the Griffins to win in overtime in Game 3. In Game 4, he didn’t break until the last three minutes, making nine saves in the first period and eight in the second.
A challenge in net?
Michal Postava, an import from Czechia this season who grabbed the starter’s job from 2021 first-round pick Sebastian Cossa late in the regular season and started all eight playoff games, didn’t give up a goal Tuesday until two minutes left in the second period, when undrafted 27-year-old Noah Philp made it 1-0.
Postava finished the playoffs with a 2.09 goals-against average and a .912 save percentage.
Philp scored again four minutes into the third period to make it 2-0. The Griffins’ challenge grew when Sandin-Pelllikka and Antti Tuomisto took penalties at 4:08 and 4:20, respectively, but then Chicago’s Ryan Suzuki took a penalty at 4:33, and Skyler Brind’Amour at 5:12.
It was 3-0 to the Wolves, on a goal from Justin Robidas with four minutes to play in regulation, when the Griffins finally found the back of Chicago’s net. Eduards Tralmarks scored with 2:47 to play, and Brandsegg-Nygård netted his fifth goal of the playoffs with 15 seconds left in the Griffins’ playoff run.
Contact Helene St. James at hstjames@freepress.com.
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This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Michael Brandsegg-Nygård shines but Grand Rapids Griffins eliminated
Reporting by Helene St. James, Detroit Free Press / Detroit Free Press
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