from Dan Kingerski of Detroit Hockey Now,
Rasmussen met with the media Monday for the first time since the injury, and reports his rehabilitation is going according to plan.
“It’s getting better, almost there to the point where I’ll have no limitations,” Rasmussen said. “I’ll be good to do the usual summer training and continue up with rehab. Everything will be good in the next week or two and I’ll be ready to go in the gym and be 100 percent for camp.”
The timing of that injury couldn’t have been worse. Rasmussen had moved up to play wing on Andrew Copp’s line. He looked quite comfortable in that role.
“I think we had some success early on and I was able to snowball off that,” Copp said. “I think that especially in the beginning of the season I wasn’t playing my best. Got very pass happy, kind of related to the injury, not being able to drive and skate with the puck as well as I would have liked. Having Ras’ forechecking ability really helped kind of get pucks back and we produced really well. That was right around the time I started to feel better.”
Rasmussen said the injury was well beyond “frustrating.”
“Tough with where things were at with the team,” he said. “How well everyone was playing. To kind of get removed from that was really tough, something I haven’t experienced for awhile. It was frustrating and upsetting to watch and not be out there with the guys. Tough to watch some losses and some games where I obviously would’ve liked to be a part of and kept it going.”
from Ted Kulfan of the Detroit News,
"It was a tough decision. Ben has been with the organization for a long time," Shawn Horcoff, Griffins general manager/Red Wings assistant GM, said Monday during a Zoom conference call. "Just given the way the year went, obviously it's not the way we wanted to end the season. We'd much rather be playing right now. We do have a young team, that was taken into account as well.
"We wanted to wait the entire season and see it through and see how it went. But at the end of the day, Ben had been with us for a long time and it was time for a new voice."
Simon joined the Griffins' coaching staff in 2015, as an assistant for Todd Nelson. In total, Simon spent eight years in Grand Rapids, and ultimately became the 11th head coach in franchise history.
"He's been here for a long time with a lot of the players, and eight years in a good stint for a professional hockey coach," Horcoff said. "It's not easy to last that long. Obviously Ben was doing something right. We just looked at it as a chance, the last couple of years haven't been great, and at some point you have to look at the entire organization and start from scratch."
Simon had a 144-137-38 overall record with the Griffins, and made the playoffs one year, a first-round exit in 2019 (there were no AHL playoffs in 2020 and 2021 because of COVID-19).
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