The Detroit Red (Griffin) Wings take their act on the road tonight for the first of two meetings with the Penguins this season. I don't think I need to go into any detail about the match-up history of these two teams. Tonight's game is more about "what could have been" had both teams been at full strength, but the Wings and Pens still have some pretty good players taking the ice tonight.

For the Wings, Jimmy Howard's knee was still not 100%, but it looks like we might see him on Thursday against the Blues. Marc-Andre Fleury started off ice-cold for the Penguins this year, but he has reduced his GAA to 2.29 and his save percentage is a cool .920, both stats better than any of the Wing goalies this year. The Pens have also been bolstered by the return of Jordan Staal.

Per Khan(!), here are your projected starting line-ups:

Franzen-Zetterberg-Eaves
Hudler-Filppula-Bertuzzi
Draper-Helm-Miller
Tatar-Abdelkader-Mursak

Lidstrom-Kronwall
Ericsson-Rafalski
Salei-Kindl

MacDonald (starting)
McCollum

Penguins:
Chris Kunitz-Evgeni Malkin-Pascal Dupuis
Matt Cooke-Jordan Staal-Tyler Kennedy
Michael Rupp-Maxime Talbot-Chris Conner
Craig Adams-Mark Letestu-Arron Asham

Brooks Orpik-Kris Letang
Paul Martin-Zbynek Michalek
Alex Goligoski-Deryk Engelland

Marc-Andre Fleury (starting)
Brent Johnson

Is this a preview of the Stanley Cup Finals? It's a little early for pronouncements like that, but this is a game between the number 3 and 4 teams in the NHL in terms of points, and should be a good contest. As always, keep it classy. Go Wings!