:format(webp)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/57560599/usa_today_10400778.0.jpg)
Time: 7:00pm ET
Place: Little Caesar’s Arena
TV: FSD, FSOH
Radio: 97.1 FM The Ticket, 1270 AM
Blue Jackets Blog: The Cannon
Kick your shoes off, put on your lazy pants, and buy all the perishable goods because the Wings are going to be home for a while. Tonight we play the first of five straight games at home, and we only have two away games between now and December 19th!
Boom boom, then you’re shaking the room
The Jackets went into their game against Carolina last night on a three game losing streak and are looking to put the hurt on some teams to get rolling again. But tonight they won’t get obnoxious booming cannon fire when they score so, in my professional opinion, they should just not bother scoring and let us score instead. Our digital goal horn is still better than that noise which, in the words of T.J. Oshie, is “the worst thing in hockey”.*
*They did try bringing the actual JLA horn over, but since it is fairly small it sounded more like a meep than a BRRRRRRRRGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHH in the more voluminous LCA. Should have asked science to fix it.
Jeff Blashill & The Shuffle Kings feat. John Tortorella
Jeff Blashill has a penchant for being secretive about the lines, and then when you have them figured out, he mixes them up anyway. It’s not the worst thing, as putting Mantha, AA, and Frk together had us fighting Flames with fire.
Last year, line shuffling was a thing to be feared, to whisper about only under the darkness of a new moon, but we have a familiar enough group of forwards to mix and match in ways that take advantage of everyone’s particular strengths while still working smoothly as a single unit.
Torts has taken a different approach. If Blashill uses a Bingo Wheel of Doom then Tortorella throws handfuls of ingredients into pot and hopes for the best. He’s taken to dressing eleven forwards and seven defensemen recently, which has made it difficult for the team to develop any chemistry among the lines - particularly the 4th line which is struggling to find a solid center with Lukas Sedlak on IR with an ankle injury.
You Best Protect Ya Neck
While the Jackets may still appear fairly strong on paper, you may notice something seems just a bit off with them on the ice. While we always have to worry about our def-ERICSSON-ense, the Blue Jackets should be worried too - particularly about our kids who are fast enough to exploit even the smallest lapses in coverage. Not to mention Zetterberg out there threading the needle without even looking.
Let’s Go Red Wings!
Red Wings Projected Lineup
Anthony Mantha - Henrik Zetterberg - Gustav Nyquist
Tomas Tatar - Dylan Larkin - Justin Abdelkader
Darren Helm - Frans Nielsen - Luke Glendening
Martin Frk - Andreas Athanasiou - David Booth
Jonathan Ericsson - Trevor Daley
Xavier Ouellet - Mike Green
Niklas Kronwall - Nick Jensen
Jimmy Howard
Petr Mrazek
Blue Jackets Projected Lineup
Artemi Panarin - Alexander Wennberg - Cam Atkinson
Boone Jenner - Brandon Dubinsky - Oliver Bjorkstrand
Pierre-Luc Dubois - Nick Foligno - Josh Anderson
Sonny Milano - Tyler Motte - Gabriel Carlsson
Zach Werenski - Seth Jones
Jack Johnson - David Savard
Ryan Murray - Markus Nutivaara
Joonas Korpisalo
Sergei Bobrovski
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Game Day Prediction Contest
Would you like to predict the outcome of the game and potentially become internet famous? Well you're in luck, because here's your opportunity. Here's how it works.
First off, if you don't have an SBN Username, make one! We'd love to have you, plus it's much easier to track your predictions season-long. Then make your guess on the winning team, final score, and who the Red Wings player of the game will be. Enter the required information into the form below using the formats indicated. If you don't use those formats, your answers will be disregarded. All submissions are timestamped and will be accepted only until the official game start time. Only one submission per person, please. The Red Wings POTG will be determined by the collective of WiiM writers.
Each correct winning team prediction is worth 1 point. Each correct player of the game prediction is worth 3 points. Each correct final score prediction is worth 5 points. If you get all three correct, you'll receive 15 points.
Good luck!