Michal Postava earns AHL Player of the Week after 48-save finale

Michal Postava did not just win AHL Player of the Week. He forced the league to notice a Grand Rapids team that already looked built for the postseason. The Griffins goaltender stopped 48 of 50 shots last week, posted a 1.01 goals-against average and a .960 save percentage, and finished the stretch with his fourth shutout, a number that now stands as a franchise record for a rookie netminder.

That late-season run mattered because it came in a real statement game. Grand Rapids closed the regular season by blasting Milwaukee 8-0 on April 17, a result that gave the Griffins a franchise-best 27th road victory and stretched their road winning streak to six games. Postava’s shutout in that game was the largest shutout in the 30-year history of the franchise, the kind of result that does more than pad a résumé. It gives a playoff team proof that its goalie can take over a series when the games get tight and ugly.

The award capped a season in which Postava and Sebastian Cossa shared the 2025-26 Harry “Hap” Holmes Memorial Award after Grand Rapids allowed a league-low 159 goals, or 2.21 per game. That was the first Holmes Award for the Griffins since back-to-back wins in 2001-02 and 2002-03, and the 159 goals against set a new franchise low, breaking the old mark of 166 from 2003-04. For a club heading into the postseason, the message is obvious: Grand Rapids did not just survive the year, it built the league’s stingiest defensive profile.

Postava’s own numbers sharpen the case even more. Detroit assigned him back to Grand Rapids on April 11, and he arrived with a 15-6-0 record, a 1.78 GAA, a .935 save percentage and three shutouts in 23 AHL appearances. He had already put together a track record of handling pressure, leading HC Kometa Brno to a Czech Extraliga championship in 2025 with a 10-7 record, a 1.97 GAA and a .940 save percentage in 17 playoff games, and earning Best Goaltender honors after his 2023-24 season with HC Přerov.

Grand Rapids has the league’s defensive hardware. Now it has a goalie who just finished the regular season looking like a problem no opponent will want to solve in a short series.