Gorilla Crouch

Former Griffins coach Mike Stothers

The intrigue in an organization that is surprisingly bereft of melodrama is that Mike Stothers, who coached the AHL affiliate in Grand Rapids, has been sent packing after one season. Removing a coach this early on in his tenure is somewhat controversial, but the Red Wings and Griffins also ended their one-year agreement to have Detroit handle the hiring decisions for Grand Rapids’ coaches. So that likely explains the decision to go in another direction. Bruce MacLeod has the details in this post:

…the Grand Rapids Griffins, however…have reacquired the right to hire and fire coaches. The Red Wings, specifically Jim Nill, were responsible for the coaching staff last season. Not sure why the change, but perhaps it came down to a difference in opinion on Mike Stothers, who coached the Griffins this past season. Stothers was with the Red Wings, as was assistant Jim Paek, throughout the playoff run.

The press release seems to indicate that the Griffins organization wants to return to the level of success they’ve had over the past 9 seasons.

The new head coach will join one of the American Hockey League’s premier franchises. Over the last nine seasons, the Griffins have the most wins (402, tied), regular season championships (two) and division titles (five) of any Triple-A hockey team.

In addition, the Griffins and Red Wings have comprised hockey’s most successful affiliation since their 2002 union, combining for more standings points (1,129) than any other AHL/NHL partnership over the last six seasons. Fifteen former Griffins were on the playoff roster of the 2008 Stanley Cup champions, eight of whom will have their names engraved on the Cup: Niklas Kronwall, Jiri Hudler, Valtteri Filppula, Brett Lebda, Darren Helm, Tomas Kopecky, Darren McCarty and Chris Osgood.

There are a whole bunch of questions about this situation that I don’t have the time to go into. Removing Greg Ireland as head coach was questioned after one poor season when the Red Wings had raided the Griffins of all of their top forwards for the 2006-07 season [Jiri Hudler, Tomas Kopecky, Valtteri Filppula]. Ireland is now the head coach for the San Antonio Rampage. Bruce Garrioch suggests Stothers could end up being the head coach for the LA Kings, which would be a nice step up for him.

I thought the decision to have the Red Wings hire the coaching staff in Grand Rapids would be a good way to continue to develop talent. My only guess would be Detroit’s goal of developing Red Wings prospects could in some situations hamper Grand Rapids’ goal of icing the best team possible. And the fact Stothers answered to the Red Wings organization, not the Grand Rapids team, might have caused issues as well.

The latter scenario is the likely explanation, as Danny Ainge and Doc Rivers have both been seen as being largely incompetent in their roles with the Boston Celtics. But once you give them Kevin Garnet and Ray Allen they become champions. That’s why I wanted to see the Pistons trade Sheed and Rip for KG last summer if they weren’t going to get rid of Flip Saunders last summer.

Like I said at the top of the article, this provides a minor amount of intrigue in an organization that does so many things right. I guess they have to have one thing go haywire each season, as last year it was trading Shawn Matthias for a dazed and confused Todd Bertuzzi.

One final note: I checked with Ansar Khan from MLIVE to see if he knows any of the details on the offer the Red Wings made to Valtteri Filppula that he turned down. He said that he doesn’t, there’s no real way to guess what his salary demands are. My guess is still $2.85 million per season.

Grand Rapids Griffins greg ireland mike stothers Red Wings

June 19th, 2008
Categories: Red Wings . Author: Dave

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