Want to know about the turnover the Wolves have experienced this season? With 42 points, Brandon Pirri is the team’s sixth-leading scorer.
He also hasn’t appeared in an AHL game since January 5.
But despite losing Pirri to a recall to the Vegas Golden Knights and former top defenseman Erik Brannstrom in a trade to the Ottawa Senators organization, the Wolves (44-22-6-4, 98 points) are in their usual spot. They open the AHL Calder Cup playoffs Friday night against Grand Rapids, entering the postseason as the Central Division champion and the Western Conference’s top seed.
“I think we’re in a good place mentally,” coach Rocky Thompson said. “We’ve been battle-tested this year. Faced a lot of adversity and our guys have persevered through that. We’ve had multiple players, really as a team, being able to step up.”
The losses of Pirri and Brannstrom, plus the periodic absences of key contributors Daniel Carr, Brooks Macek, Tomas Hyka, Gage Quinney and others forced the Wolves to come together in different ways. Thompson said that challenge “galvanized” the team as it had to rely on the depth of its roster and commitment to its game plan.
“It identified that we need to play a certain way,” Thompson said. “If we play that certain way, we give ourselves and opportunity every single night to have success, and our guys as a group bought into it.”
And with Hyka and Quinney ready for the playoffs and buying in, that mentality will be even more helpful. In March, the Wolves won nine games and took control of the division and conference races.
“Everybody just came together in this style of play that we play and it snowballed in a positive direction,” Thompson said.
Now, though, the Wolves have to keep things going in that positive direction. Beginning Friday, the Wolves play a Grand Rapids team they beat in five of eight meetings this season.
However, they entered last season’s playoffs with the best record in the Western Conference, but that didn’t help them much as they were swept out of the postseason’s first round by the rival Rockford IceHogs.
Obviously, that’s something they want to avoid this season. As impressive as this regular season was, winning a division title and finishing with the most points isn’t what the Wolves are aiming for.
Thompson likes where the team is emotionally heading into what they hope is a long playoff run.
“I think there’s a positive confidence within our (group),” Thompson said, “that we can face a lot of different situations and continue to persevere.”
Game 2 of the best-of-five series is Saturday night in Rosemont. If necessary, Game 5 would be Sunday, April 28, at Allstate Arena.
