The Manitoba Moose have struggled mightily to put games away this season, and their two-game set against the Grand Rapids Griffins didn’t do a lot to put those concerns to bed. Now, with just a few games until the All-Star break, they have to regroup after a disappointing result.
Facing off against the top team in the American Hockey League’s (AHL) Central Division, the Moose were in tough and ultimately were unable to pull off the wins in either game despite leading in both, falling to 11-23-2.
Game Recaps
Game 1, Jan. 23, 2025: GR 5 – 4 MB
The first of two games between the Moose and Griffins was in the home side’s favor until it wasn’t, with the Griffins storming back within a span of about 10 minutes to completely turn the game on its head.
The game wasn’t even two minutes old before Grand Rapids opened the scoring, with Tim Gettinger kicking things off. The rest of the period, however, proved lopsided as the Moose threw 18 shots at Griffins’ netminder Ville Husso before finally beating him on a CJ Suess deflection late in the period.
The second period was a near mirror image of the first, with the Moose pummeling the Griffins’ net with shots, but this time converting twice. Ben King scored just 1:28 into the middle frame to put the Moose up 2-1. They added to that on Parker Ford’s ninth of the season to make it 3-1 heading into the third.
After two dominant periods, it appeared as if the Moose let off the gas to start the third. Less than two minutes into the frame, Joe Snively brought the Griffins within one.
What followed was a complete unraveling, leading to goals from Ondrej Becher, Brogan Rafferty, and Sheldon Dries within a ten-minute span. It went from a three-goal lead to a two-goal deficit that wasn’t overcome as the Moose eventually fell 5-4.
Game 2, Jan. 25, 2025: GR 2 – 1 MB
The Moose looked to rebound in the second game of their series against the Griffins and appeared set to get a point before heartbreak in the dying minutes.
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It took until the third period before the first goal of the game was scored, but it came in a huge spot for the Moose. Ford, who lives around the crease, was there to bang home a Jaret Anderson-Dolan shot to make it 1-0 Moose on the power play. It was his third goal of the two-game set.
The lead was short-lived, however, as the Griffins managed to sneak behind the Moose defenders in front of the net, with Dries wide open to tap home a pass from Dominik Shine to tie things 1-1.
Just when it appeared the game was destined for overtime, a late power play gave the Griffins a chance to do something dramatic, and they did just that. Dries added his second of the game with just under a minute in what stood as the game-winner.
A Full 60 Continues to be a Struggle for Moose
The story of the weekend was that of inconsistencies, largely based on the struggle to play a consistent game through 60 minutes. Game 1 was a lapse in effort for roughly six minutes, while it took just a few moments for the game to get away from them in Game 2.
Jan. 23 was one of many examples this season where the team had entered the third with a lead and found themselves trailing at the final horn. The players know it, but the lapses that lead to losses have mounted and at some point, those mistakes have to turn into improvements.
“They know they played well for most of the game,” Moose head coach Mark Morrison said after the loss. “It’s about learning how to win, and we’ll show the mistakes that cost us the game and hopefully we’ll learn from them.”
For the most part, it seemed as if they learned most of their lessons, something that was echoed by forward Jaret Anderson-Dolan when I asked him after the series finale about their efforts and what they had learned after the Game 1 collapse.
“I don’t think we really had our foot off the gas where they were dominant in the [offensive zone] outside of a few shifts,” Anderson-Dolan explained. “We responded and did a better job of that. You have to take the positive and learn lessons from that, and I think we did that from the last game, and we have to learn from this going forward.”
Moose League-Worst Power Play Needs Repeatable Success
It’s no secret that the Moose struggle on the power play, and sitting at a league-worst 13% approaching the All-Star break, it’s a major detriment to their attempts at finding success. This is also a team that can’t seem to score effectively at even strength either, so the lack of special teams’ success makes it that much harder to string together wins.
After scoring once on the power play on Jan. 25, I asked assistant coach Eric Dubois about getting the units going and how important it is to find repeatable successes.
“We don’t score a lot at five-on-five, so we need our power play to score,” Dubois said. “Tonight they did their job, and we lost the game at five-on-five, but to give us a chance to win, especially with going on the road, we’ll need our power play for sure.”
#MBMoose Assistant Coach Eric Dubois on tonight's game and more.#GoMooseGo pic.twitter.com/QJK6fqqIew
— Manitoba Moose (@ManitobaMoose) January 25, 2025
Even adding a few percentage points would go a long way, as they are sitting with just 78 through 36 games this season. That’s good for dead last in the league, joining their power play in the basement. With a game like the one they lost on Jan. 5 being decided in the final minutes, an extra boost from the man advantage can quite literally be the difference in these close contests that they keep dropping.
On the Road Again
The Moose are just a couple of weeks removed from putting together a 4-0-1 road trip before they came home and dropped four straight. Now is as good a time as ever to head back out on the road and start another hot stretch to try and somehow claw their way back a little closer to the playoff picture.
Beginning on Jan. 29, they’ll face off against two Central Division rivals, opening against the Chicago Wolves. They then head to play the Milwaukee Admirals before playing one more against the Wolves before returning home.
