Detroit's going to be looking to wash that sour taste out of its mouth as the Coyotes come home to their first game in the U.S. after an opening pair of games with the Boston Bruins in Prague.
- Jimmy Howard will be your starter in net. Neither Red Wing goalie had a good outing in his last start but Howard will get the start tonight. Expect Jimmy to bounce back and have a good night. The lackluster performance against the Avs should have some staying power with Howard as he had the night off in Dallas. The question is whether that staying power is of negative or motivational nature.
- The last time these two teams met, the Red Wings put a 6-1 victory over Phoenix in Game 7 and the talk of "throwing the snake" was ended with authority. The Wings got four 2nd period goals, including Pavel Datsyuk's sick breakaway goal that left most of the crowd (that was already confused about what this "hockey" thing was) in silence. Datsyuk scored twice in that game and was dominant all game long.
- Continuing with Datsyuk, he had a quiet night against Dallas with only two shots that were threats (one being a crossbar dinger) and didn't look like his normal Datsyukian self. I don't think he's hurt or anything, I think he just had an "off" night. He had some good success against the Coyotes last year so maybe he'll go back to that success tonight.
- Detroit just needs to do everything in the exact opposite fashion that they did it on Tuesday night in Dallas. They were pretty bad in all three zones and were very flat all night. They're going to need to bounce back solidly against a Coyotes team that plays with a high pace.
- So this might happen with Phoenix. Don't get too excited, it'll probably fall apart at the last second again.
- The Coyotes have only played two games thus far and in one they got shutout so it's hard to really get a feel for what their identity is thus far. Expect offensive chances Shane Doan, Wojtek Wolski and Radim Vrbata, they're consistently involved in the game plan.
- Look for the Coyotes to implement Zybnek Michalek, Matthew Lombardi, Daniel Winnik in the gameplan. What's that you say? They're all gone? Oh. Okay. Michalek and Lombardi are big departures as Michalek was arguably their best defender and they didn't exactly replace him with anyone of the same caliber. As far as Lombardi, the Coyotes added some forwards like Ray Whitney, Eric Belanger and Andrew Ebbett so they actually improved at forward.
- Five For Howling is your SB Nation Phoenix Coyotes blog. Give 'em a look see.
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