Game Preview

Morning Skate: Red Wings vs. Maple Leafs, Predicted Lineups, How to Watch

By helmerroids@helmerroids Dec 15, 2017, 7:00am CST

Detroit Red Wings v Montreal Canadiens — same

Time: 7:30pm ET

Place: Little Caesar’s Arena

TV: FSD, TSN4

Radio: 97.1 FM The Ticket, 1270 AM

You know that sound Zetterberg makes during interviews? It’s not really a sigh but more of a “aaahhhuhhhhaagh” with a short exhale at the end? Take that noise, add the Price is Right loser horn and set it to gifs of failed trust falls and that’s the general feeling spreading amongst the Red Wings.

We’ve established that we’re good at losing

This is going to sound ridiculous, but stay with me until the end. Say we try winning the game? How about we go a step farther and try not making easy things seem really difficult? Please? We are all well aware that the Red Wings are kind of terrible, and going 1-5-5 in our last eleven games is not optimal. Clearly we have a lot of problems, except our special teams? Sure, why not.

All we are hearing are the same questions getting the same answers, and it’s depressing as all get out, in fact it’s starting to go past being depressing and straight into being plain old boring. Find a way to win, play with grit, fight sparked the bench, we made dumb mistakes, didn’t actually play that bad, defensive responsibility, blah blah blah blah.

Trust the process.

TruSt tHe PRoCesS.

One less thing to worry about?

Auston Matthews did not play against the Wild last night, and if he is also out tonight then nobody will watch the game and we can pretend it never happened if we lose. If there is even the slightest concern about Matthews I’d expect Babcock to keep him out, or at least severely limit his minutes unless they’re losing. It seems more likely his first game back won’t be until the Leafs play the Hurricanes next week.

Frustration Nation

The Wings players seem to think they’ve been playing not too bad, and you can play as ok as you want but whether you lose by two goals or lose by nine goals you still get the same L on the score sheet. The Wings were winning because a player or two would put the team on his back and drag them to the finish, that’s not happening now. Everybody individually is kind of faded with only a flash of brilliance here and there. And no, the answer isn’t throwing more punches. Witkowski is not the lynchpin of this team. Stop it.

Quote of the week

“We got the defense down.” Oh Hank, bless your heart.

Let’s Go Red Wings!

Red Wings Predicted Lineup

Gustav Nyquist – Henrik Zetterberg – Justin Abdelkader
Tomas Tatar – Dylan Larkin – Anthony Mantha
Darren Helm – Frans Nielsen – Luke Glendening
Andreas Athanasiou – Martin Frk

Danny DeKeyser – Mike Green
Jonathan Ericsson – Trevor Daley
Niklas Kronwall – Nick Jensen
Luke Witkowski

Jimmy Howard
Petr Mrazek

Maple Leafs Lineup

Zach Hyman - Patrick Marleau - Mitch Marner
Leo Komarov - Nazem Kadri - William Nylander
James Van Riemsdyk - Tyler Bozak - Connor Brown
Matt Martin - Dominic Moore - Josh Leivo

Morgan Rielly - Ron Hainsey
Jake Gardiner - Nikita Zaitsev
Andreas Borgman - Roman Polak

Curtis McElhinney
Frederik Andersen

Gameday Prediction Contest

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!