The Red Wings travel to Anaheim to take on the Ducks. The Wings are 3-0 so far this season against the Ducks and have outscored them by a 13-4 margin in those three games, including two shutouts.
Prior to the Ducks winning against the lowly Avalanche, they had lost 5 straight (one in OT), including a 9-3 drubbing at the hands of the St. Louis Blues. However, before that stretch of five, they won four straight. They're a difficult team to predict because they've been streaky all season. The Red Wings have gone 7-3-0 in their last 10 and with the line-up starting to get healthy, they're becoming a real dangerous team to face each night they take the ice.
Anaheim Calling is your SB Nation Ducks page.
Only three more games left for the H2H2 pledges over at TPL.
- Jimmy Howard will start in net tonight. Howard played pretty solid in the Kings game but unfortunately gave up some late goals that inflated the GA from 1 to 4. Interesting to see how he follows up that game.
- Looks like Brian Rafalski will sit out again tonight with back spasms. Jakub Kindl played pretty well in the place of Rafalski on Monday night against the Kings. The key tonight will be whether or not Kindl can follow that up with a good performance tonight against the Ducks. Kindl has been pretty confident with the puck lately and made some good plays in the offensive zone. I think if he solves his consistency problems, he'll be pretty good at the NHL level.
- Baby Mule was born on Sunday night and it's a boy. Congratulations to Mama and Papa Mule. Maybe it sparks the Mule to go for another Muletrick. Have I said Mule enough? MULE!
- Dan Ellis will start in net for the Ducks. Jonas Hiller has been battling with vertigo and will not play. Name your favorite #danellisproblem .
- The Ducks made a few moves at the trade deadline, acquiring big Brad Winchester from the Blues and Dan Ellis from the Lightning. With the Ducks sitting three points back of the playoffs, do these moves help or hurt them?
- Anaheim allows a lot of shots (32.9) per game and doesn't put many on net for themselves (28.3). However, they still find ways to win games so the Wings will still need to be responsible in the defensive zone.
- Jiri Hudler is one assist shy of 100 on his career. With the way he's been playing lately, why not tonight?
- Corey Perry leads the Ducks in points with 68. He also leads in goals with 31 and assists at 37.
- Player of the game prediction: Johan Franzen. Mule gets inspired by Baby Mule, 'nuff said.
- Score Prediction: 6-2 Detroit. They're firing on all sports cliches (despite two losses) lately and the roster getting healthy is scary for the rest of the Western Conference. I think they put a lot of shots on Dan Ellis and make him work really hard in the first period.
- For discussion: Last night, 8 of the 10 games played were decided by one goal. Of the two that were decided by more than one, one included an empty netter so you could almost count that as 9 of 10. I've noticed quite a bit of this lately. Is this a sign that the NHL is reaching parity?