A bit of Griffins/prospects news to hold you over before the game tonight. Which is a big one, if you hadn't heard.

The trade that I missed covering due to it being announced a while after the deadline -- while I was in the hospital, was Detroit trading Griffins' defenseman Andy Delmore to Calgary for Riley Armstrong. That is the brother of Atlanta's Colby, for the record.

Both the Delmore and Kris Newbury moves happened for two reasons. For starters, Grand Rapids getting Ryan Oulahen back from injury, and getting Brad May from Detroit left them with too many veteran players, as AHL teams can only hold so many. Secondly, Grand Rapids is well out of a playoff spot... so why not move a few AHL veterans for younger players that are at the very least long shots of players who could make an impact for the future? It also opens up more ice time for Detroit's prospects.

On individual levels, both Delmore and Newbury were failures. Newbury was an agitator, but also a bit of a hot head who I saw take countless retaliation penalties when he had drawn a call. 144 PIM total, not great. And Delmore was formerly the winner of the Eddie Shore Trophy, for best defenseman in the AHL. He wasn't playing like that at all. He should have been a top pairing guy but was 4th among Grand Rapids defensemen in points, behind Doug Janik (who is more of a two-way guy), Jakub Kindl, and the resurgent Logan Pyett. Both were shipped out for wingers who are known more for toughness and hard work, opening up more ice time for the younger Pyett/Kindl, Mursak, and Tatar.

Today, Detroit re-assigned prospect Evan McGrath to Syracuse. That's still the AHL, Columbus' affiliate team. He was the odd man out of the lineup since Grand Rapids had added so many forwards recently: Armstrong, Owens, May, Oulahen, Abdelkader, etc. Also the addition of a guy like Tollefsen makes the blueline more crowded, meaning Griffins' goon Paul Crosty will be playing more forward. McGrath is a 4th year pro and he's not having a great season.

He was formerly an 100+ point scorer in the OHL. Going into his draft year, he was considered a likely 1st round pick. A bad year let him slip to the 5th round, where Detroit scooped him up. He finished his OHL career strong, but struggled when he got to the professional level. His rookie AHL season wasn't great, and he had to spend some time in the AHL. However, he re-invented his game as more of a two-way player who could play in all situations, and his next two seasons were actually pretty good. I thought he could make a push either this year or next for an NHL job on the 4th line, and he looked really good in pre-season action.

Unfortunately, that didn't amount to anything. I still believed he could be an NHL player on another roster, but he's had a poor season in the AHL this year. Last year he centered the Griffins' most productive line with Francis Pare and Francis Lemieux, but this year he was relegated to 3rd/4th line duty. He has only 19 points in 57 games, and he's a team worst -18.

This is pretty much a way of cutting McGrath loose early. He's far too good to go down to the ECHL, so loaning him out to another AHL team is the logical option. He only signed a one-year deal this offseason, and it was looking very unlikely that he'd get another deal. At least this way he can try to earn more ice time and maybe make an impression on another NHL club. But who knows -- Grand Rapids has contracted the injury bug a few times this season, and Detroit's free to re-assign him at their leisure.

Always a sad day when a prospect I once had hope for finally gets cut loose, even if you could pretty much see it coming.