Griffins Claim Calder Cup, Tatar Named MVP

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The Grand Rapids Griffins claimed their first-ever Calder Cup Championship on Tuesday night, defeating the Syracuse Crunch 5-2 to complete a 4-2 series win.

Forward Tomas Tatar was named the Most Valuable Player of the playoffs. He scored twice in the final game for a total of 16 goals and five assists for 21 points in 24 playoffs.

Richard Panik opened the game’s scoring with 2:45 remaining in the opening period, jamming a rebound chance past Petr Mrazek with the Grand Rapids netminder out of position.

The Griffins tied things back up at 2:23 of the second when Mitch Callahan whacked a shot from the inside edge of the right faceoff circle past Syracuse goalie Cedrick Desjardins.

Tatar’s first of the night put the Griffins up with 7:19 remaining in the middle frame. On a Grand Rapids power play, Tatar found open space on the far side of the crease and banged the rebound of a Gustav Nyquist chance past Desjardins.

Andrej Sustr would pull the Crunch back into a tie at 5:14 of the third but Brennan Evans snuck a shot from the left point through traffic and past Desjardins at 9:54 for the eventual game-winner.

Tatar and Joakim Andersson each added late-game empty-net goals to confirm the victory.

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Clark founded the site that would become DetroitHockey.Net in September of 1996. He continues to write for the site and executes the site's design and development, as well as that of DH.N's sibling site, FantasyHockeySim.com.

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