Chicago Wolves prepare to take on Grand Rapids Griffins in Central Division finals

The Chicago Wolves are still skating towards another American Hockey League championship after being pushed to the brink in their best-of-five opening round series. 

Now it's on to the Grand Rapids Griffins, a team Wolves' head coach Spiros Anastas used to work for.

The Wolves are getting ready to face the top-seeded Griffins in the division finals series.

They bounced back from an overtime loss with a dominating 6-1 win in a decisive game five against the Stars, but the belief of a playoff run ending with a sixth league title has been brewing.

"I do, I do, I've felt that over the last month, especially," Anastas said. "We came off a pretty tough March. We're a team that's better when we get to practice, and we thought March was indicative of that. Once we got our practices under our belt from the last four, five games of the season into playoffs, we've just been clicking and you just see this positive swagger happening within the room. I had zero doubt in game five we were going to win it after that disappointing loss. So yeah, definitely feel it."

After taking over on an interim basis midseason, Anastas was named head coach in December and has contributed to a team environment that's been special.

"The commoraderie. Everyone is so close, there's guys goofing around right now while I'm doing the interview, so we're all best friends. That goes a long way, especially in playoffs," said center Ryan Suzuki.

"I think we're just trying to take it day by day, you know. Every day we get with this group, every extra day we get, I should say, is a special day, so we're just trying to continue getting more and more days together," said team captain Josiah Slavin.

Wolves will hit the road to Grand Rapids for Game 1 on Thursday. 

The last time they played in the Central Division finals was in 2022, when they went on to win a Calder Cup.