Nosek’s late game winner lifts Griffins to Calder Cup lead

Tomas Nosek’s second goal of the night and ninth of the post season came just under 14 seconds away from the end of the American Hockey League’s Calder Cup championship opening game and lifted his Grand Rapids Griffins to a 3-2 win against the visiting Syracuse Crunch at the Van Andel Arena Friday (June 2, 2017).

Nosek also opened the scoring 4:56 into the contest, but the Griffin were ultimately forced to come from behind in this one as Kevin Lynch tied the game with his second of the post season about five minutes later and Joel Vermin’s sixth had the visitors up 2-1 in the opening minute of the second period.

Captain Nathan Paetsch fired his second of the playoffs to tie it up 2:48 from the end of the middle period and the third period was scoreless until Nosek’s game winner in the dying seconds.

Jared Coreau picked up another win in goal for the Griffs, this time handling 22 of 24 Syracuse shots while Mike McKenna made 33 saves in goal for the Crunch.

The Griffins will try to double its margin on Saturday (June 3 ) when it hosts game two of the series. The middle three games will be played in New York.