Earlier today, Detroit Red Wings head coach Jeff Blashill told the media that Andreas Athanasiou was coming off Injured Reserve to make his season debut on Tuesday night.
The Red Wings have confirmed the move and have announced that LW Ryan Kuffner and D Oliwer Kaski have been assigned to the Grand Rapid Griffins.
The #RedWings today assigned LW Ryan Kuffner and D Oliwer Kaski to the AHL’s Grand Rapids Griffins and removed LW Andreas Athanasiou from injured reserve.
Details: https://t.co/MdU9dQU5gM pic.twitter.com/7Bln4AKiRW
— Detroit Red Wings (@DetroitRedWings) October 8, 2019
From Detroit Red Wings:
Kuffner scored his first professional goal in his AHL debut during the Griffins’ season-opening win on Saturday after signing with the organization as a free agent on March 12, 2019. The 23-year-old appeared in 10 NHL games with the Red Wings during the 2018-19 season following a four-year career at Princeton University, where he set the school record for goals after racking up 75 goals in 132 games from 2015-19. Kuffner totaled 152 points (75-77-152) and 20 penalty minutes in his four-year collegiate career. The Ottawa, Ontario, native was a 2019 ECAC First-Team All-Star after he was named an ECAC Second-Team All-Star as a junior in 2017-18.
Kaski, 23, is in his first season in North America after signing with the Red Wings as a free agent in May 2019 and also scored in his AHL debut in Grand Rapids’ 8-5 win on Saturday. Kaski was the most-valuable player of the SM-Liiga, Finland’s top professional league, during the 2018-19 season after leading defensemen and finishing sixth overall in league scoring with 51 points (19-32-51) in 59 games with the Lahti Pelicans. The 6-foot-3, 190-pound blueliner has played parts of three seasons in the SM-Liiga for HIFK Helsinki and the Pelicans, totaling 73 points (30-43-73), a plus-15 rating and 20 penalty minutes in 144 games. Kaski also made his national team debut in 2018-19 and won a gold medal with Finland at the 2019 IIHF World Championship in Bratislava and Kosice, Slovakia, collecting two assists in 10 games.
