10:30p ET, HP Pavilion

San Jose, CA

TV: Fox Sports Detroit

Radio: 97.1 The Ticket

Sharks Blogs: Fear The Fin & Battle of California

Detroit Red Wings Tickets

Quick turnaround. Last night sucked. The refs… interference… Daniel Cleary's own visor cutting his face… whatever… none of it matters anymore. The Red Wings need to either forget it and put it behind them or use it as motivation to be better tonight. I don't care what they do as long as they play well and win. You're not going to win a game when your only goal is a fluky Kyle Quincey flip shot that hits seven people and the goalie's head. No offense to Jimmy Howard, but he's not Dominik Hasek and he's sure as hell not playing behind a great defense with Nicklas Lidstrom as the anchor. The Wings' offense needs to be better and it damn sure needs to score more than one goal.

The Sharks are a team that is struggling lately after a hot start. They get a frustrated Wings team on the second night of a back-to-back with the soon-to-be-injured-again Jonas Gustavsson in net. Seems like the perfect situation for a struggling team to right the ship. Brendan Smith is expected to play tonight. He said so himself after last night's game. The only lineup change will most likely involve Ian White returning and possibly Jakub Kindl stitting.

The Expected Lineup

Damien Brunner - Henrik Zetterberg - Johan Franzen

Daniel Cleary - Pavel Datsyuk - Justin Abdelkader

Tomas Tatar - Joakim Andersson - Patrick Eaves

Drew Miller - Cory Emmerton - Jordin Tootoo

*

Niklas Kronwall - Jonathan Ericsson

Kyle Quincey - Brendan Smith

Brian Lashoff - Ian White/Jakub Kindl

*

Jonas Gustavsson (starting)

Jimmy Howard

Scratches: Kent Huskins, Ian White/Jakub Kindl

Injuries: Valtteri Filppula (shoulder), Mikael Samuelsson (finger), Todd Bertuzzi (back), Darren Helm (back) and Carlo Colaiacovo (shoulder)

• The Red Wings are 50-23-4-2 (W-L-T-OTL) all-time against the San Jose Sharks.
• Detroit is 2-2-0 in the second game of back-to-backs. They've won the last two such games.
• The last time these two teams met was March 17, 2012. San Jose won 3-2 in overtime. Datsyuk and Filppula scored to climb the Wings out of 2 goal deficit. Martin Havlat scored in OT to win the game for the Sharks.
• Detroit is 4-4-2 in their last 10 games. San Jose is 2-6-2.
• The Wings will be facing Brad Stuart for the first time since trading him to the Sharks in the offseason. Hope he and his family are doing well off the ice. Hope he sucks tonight on the ice.
• Gustavsson has never faced the Sharks.