With the weird gametime today, the schedule is different, but it looks like yesterday’s practice remains our best bet for lineup changes that include David Booth possibly coming back in and the Red Wings going back to a 12/6 setup instead of the 11/7 they’ve been toying with recently. This is of course all thanks to the long-awaited return of Danny DeKeyser.

UPDATED LINEUPS

POWER PLAY

PP1 – Athanasiou, Larkin, Mantha, Nielsen, Green

PP2 – Nyquist, Zetterberg, Abdelkader, Tatar, Kronwall

POWER PLAY

PP1 – Landeskog, MacKinnon, Rantanen, Girard, Barberio

PP2 – Kerfoot, Soderberg, Andrighetto, Yakupov, Johnson

Keys to the Game

Start Fast

I touched on this in the morning skate. Colorado played last night in Nashville while the Red Wings were at home resting up. A fast start is always important, but with Colorado it goes beyond just them being tired. While they are improved from last season there is still a lot of the same players on the Avalanche roster that remember being beaten down almost nightly. A quick lead for the Red Wings could break Colorado’s will early.

Jimmy Howard

The story early on this season is no doubt the play of the Red Wings young forwards but 1B to that has been the play of Jimmy Howard. He has been a rock in net for the Red Wings this year and has kept them in some games, especially early on, that they probably should not have been in.

The Return of Danny DeKeyser

The Red Wings will get a chance to play with their expected blue line coming into the season for the first time tonight with the return of Danny DeKeyser. The defensive play has been up and down so far this year but DeKeyser’s return allows the Wings to take more minutes off the broken knees of Niklas Kronwall. A return to previous form by DeKeyser (the form that led to Mike Babcock calling him the human eraser) could give the Red Wings a real boost on the back end and give them a real chance at fighting for a playoff spot.