Iowa Wild Suffer 9-2 Loss to Grand Rapids Griffins

A night after beating a very good Rockford IceHogs team for the second time in December, including a tight game on Friday night, the Iowa Wild were swallowed whole and embarrassed by the Grand Rapids Griffins on Saturday night.

The team started the night without goaltender John Curry who was called up to the Minnesota Wild and wound up getting the start with Niklas Backstrom and Darcy Kuemper out sick. (A game the Wild would lose in heartbreaking fashion.)

Curry’s last-second absence meant Johan Gustafsson got the net and Iowa had to sign goaltender David DeSander, who, according to Elite Prospects, has technically been retired since the 2010-11 season after spending time in the NCAA DIII, the IHL, and the AAHL. An appearance in Saturday’s game would be DeSander’s AHL debut.

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The Wild were barely ever a contender in the game. There were about five minutes where it seemed like a possibility that the Wild could win the game. Things started poorly, with the Griffins scoring their first just 14 seconds in. The Wild managed to even the score out at the 3:20 mark on a nice goal from Tyler Graovac, scoring in his second straight game and giving him four goals in his last four games to extend his team-leading goal total to 12 and to keep him tied with Michael Keranen for the most points on the team at 24.

It was about three minutes later when the Griffins tallied again and that would be the last time Iowa was in the game, giving up eight unanswered goals in a row.

Johan Gustafsson would give up eight of the nine goals that the Griffins scored, stopping just 19 of 27 shots. Though, to be fair, well over half of those goals can’t be placed on his shoulders. They were the result of some miserable defending. Lots of open players, undefended cross-ice passes, and allowing the opposition to skate straight into the net sealed Gustafsson fate on the night.

Gustafsson has taken a lot of flack for underperforming since coming to North America last season, but he has been good in stretches this year. His season totals get dragged down on night’s like this, which is often at least partially the result of Iowa completely collapsing in multiple games this season.

Gustafsson would get yanked at the end of the second period, allowing DeSander to make his AHL debut. He stopped six of seven shots he faced, with the lone tally being a weak little dribbler, but the goal didn’t really matter by that point.

The Wild did manage to score a power play goal with 47 seconds left in the game, a tally from Jordan Schroeder with an assist to Michael Keranen.

There’s a fair chance that a player from Iowa gets called up to the NHL with Jason Zucker out ill and Mikael Granlund exiting Saturday’s game after taking a big hit from the Jets’ Dustin Byfuglien. Neither forward was a participant in Sunday’s practice in St. Paul.

I wrote in early December that Graovac is making the case for his NHL debut and that was before he put in four in four games. Schroeder is another option for the Wild. Expect a skill player to get the call up now that Matt Cooke is healthy and the team is missing two of their top skill players.

Iowa is now 10-19-1-1 on the season for a total of 22 points. They remain in last place in the Western Conference with the worst record in the AHL. Iowa’s next game is Monday against Milwaukee in Des Moines. They’ll likely be without Curry still.

Watch “highlights” from the game here:

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