| Calgary Flames | Team | Detroit Red Wings |
| 8-10-1 17 Points | Record | 11-7-1 23 Points |
| Miikka Kiprusoff (8-7-0 2.34 GAA) | Starting Goalie | Jimmy Howard (10-5-1 1.85 GAA) |
| Matchsticks & Gasoline | SB Nation Site - Last Meeting | L 4-1 Nov 3rd |
| 7:00 PM EST | Time - Television | FS-D, TSN |
Well here it is folks, the last Red Wings game before American Thanksgiving. The last 2.54 centimeters (Hi Canadians!) on the measuring stick before Kenny Holland locks himself in his office and takes a long, hard look at what needs to be done to make this team a contender. Detroit currently sits in 8th place in the west (3rd in the Central) with 23 points and the conference's 2nd-best goal differential of +10.
For comparison's sake, last season at the 20-game mark the San Jose Sharks, who had also struggled out of the gate, sat at 24 points (also 8th in the West) with a goal differential of +10.
The Wings know what they have in their locker room and they know what they need to do every night to win games. Tonight they face a Calgary squad who got a tongue-lashing a bit more fiery than Mike Babcock's "We have to decide what kind of team we want to be" speech after the San Jose loss. The Flames were beaten soundly by the Blue Jackets on Monday and, as NHL.com's Brian Hedger reports, took the fury of an impassioned Brent Sutter speech about buying into the team and the system.
Needless to say the Flames will be a bit fired up* coming out of the gate tonight. Still, Detroit is a better team and has plenty of experience dealing with pretenders hoping to use Detroit to prove they're anything but also-ran chumps. Comment away and Let's go Red Wings!
*I hate that I can't use "fired up" when talking about the Flames because their stupid team name turns it into an awful pun. Fuck you, Calgary.