Gameday Updates: Red Wings at Canadiens

Something tells me a matchup like this between two Original Six rivals (there, I took care of my contractual obligations) would have been a lot more compelling than last night's Carolina at Buffalo game. Oh well. I just hope we'll all have a happy hump day with the result of tonight's game.

Red Wings

• Boy, oh boy, where do I even begin? I guess we'll start with the easy and the obvious: Jimmy Howard is getting the start tonight in net.
• Khan gives us the defense pairs: Ericsson-Kronwall, Quincey-DeKeyser, Lashoff-Smith. St. James tells us that Ryan Sproul's been called up for this trip as the seventh defenseman because Jakub Kindl has a knee injury. Oh joy, I can't wait to get back to the Red Wings injury roulette.
• The rest of the lineup from the morning skate, per Khan:

FORWARDS

Johan Franzen	Pavel Datsyuk	Todd Bertuzzi
Justin Abdelkader	Darren Helm	Daniel Alfredsson
Tomas Tatar	Riley Sheahan	Tomas Jurco
Drew Miller	Joakim Andersson	Gustav Nyquist



• Are you ready for some GAME-TIME DECISIONS?! Bertuzzi is in for sure. Sproul won't play for sure. Franzen is a game-time decision, though Mike Babcock is pretty confident he'll be good to go. Ken Holland is also pretty confident about both Franzen and Datsyuk.
• So much for the first game after the Olympic break: Stephen Weiss won't play tonight or tomorrow.

Canadiens

• Carey Price was apparently going to get a scheduled day of rest today, so Peter Budaj would have been tonight's starter for the Canadiens anyway.
• According to Kulfan though, Price apparently is out day-to-day with the ever prevalent "lower-body injury." You'd think with how often guys suffer from these upper- and lower-body injuries, trainers would be more adept at preventing them.
• Canadiens' projected lineup:
  
  FORWARDS

  Max "Maybe should have stayed home?" Pacioretty	David "This guy again?" Desharnais	Brendan "He's got a lot of" Gallagher
  Danny "Kindl and a 3rd' Briere	Tomas "Not Tatar or Jurco" Plekanec	Brian "I AM going to be traded mid-game" Gionta
  Alex "ander? I hardly know her" Galchenyuk	Lars "Larsis, Larsi, Larsem, Larse" Eller	Rene "Is forbidden from eating" Bourque
  Travis "Former Duck vs. Red Wings" Moen	Ryan "Bleu, Rouge, et" White	Dale *cough*cough* Weise

  DEFENSE

  Josh "More than one" Gorges	P. K. "Canadian benchwarmer" Subban
  Andrei "This pair" Markov	Alexei "was good enough for Team Russia!" Emelin
  Nathan "Neauathieuan" Beaulieu	Douglas "Wait, I'm Swedish?" Murray

  GOALTENDING

  Peter "Anti-Roy" Budaj

  Dustin Tokarski

In case you couldn't stomach the Olympic hockey results anymore, the Canadiens are going to pour some salt in some wounds by honoring the Canadian Olympic men's and women's ice hockey teams tonight prior to puck drop. Of course, it's in Canada, so I really shouldn't be surprised our neighbORs to the north are rubbing this in our faces, especially with Team Sweden coming to town tonight. (s/t to Kyle and Michelle for the picture.) The least we can do is thank our hosts by taking two points tonight and letting them have zero. Shhh, don't ask how this is thanking them, just do it.

LET'S GO RED WINGS!!!