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Morning Skate: Red Wings vs. Jets, Predicted Lineup, How to Watch

By helmerroids@helmerroids Dec 5, 2017, 7:00am CST

Time: 7:30pm ET

Place: Little Caesar’s Arena

TV: FSD, TSN3

Radio: 97.1 FM The Ticket, 1270 AM

Breathe in. Hold it. Breathe out. Ready? Skip ahead if you just want the Jets news (spoiler alert: they’re really good lately) because I’m going to start by addressing the losing streak and the team’s response to what happened last game.

State of the Organ-i-zation

On Saturday, the Red Wings lost to the Habs by a score of 10-1. It was a complete failure on all levels, and of course it had to happen on the anniversary of when the Wings chased Roy out of Montreal. Our losing streak stands at 7 games in which we’ve given up 36 goals, and we already had a 6 game losing streak earlier this season. So things are not good and in fact are actually quite bad.

In short, Zetterberg and Kronwall said the Red Wings embarrassed themselves, everyone who has ever worn the Winged Wheel, and shamed their ancestors. In long, let me try and paint a picture to bring you to the appropriate depths of misery:

There are hard-fought losses, heartbreakers, butt-kickings, blowouts, the car pileup in The Blues Brothers, the Elmo on fire gif, and then there are losses like Saturday. Losses that drag you through the mud, throw you into a pile of dirty diapers, make it so that every pair of headphones you ever own will only have one ear that works, and force feed you acid-covered wheat biscuits while making you watch The Ridiculous 6 on repeat for three days straight.

What did management have to say? The same as always.

If the stake is at LCA, then our horseshoe not only missed geographically but also traveled through time and by my calculations landed on somewhere on Mars where the newest NHL expansion team, the Mars Rovers, are playing the Chicago Blackhawks in the 2379 Winter Classic.

Yes it’s nice to hear Kenny praising our young guys and even hinting at bringing up a not-Brian-Lashoff Griffin or two at some point this season, and maybe the Scott Wilson trade nudges that door open a bit more, but what I don’t like to hear is his opinion that we are “still in the race.” Which race is that? The race for top draft pick? We’re not really in that race either. We don’t want to be in the playoff race, that doesn’t help us, being mediocre for decades is worse than being terrible for a few seasons and working your way back.

Then we have Blashill and his repeated declaration that The Secret is to just decide that playing bad and losing is “unacceptable.” BRILLIANT, why didn’t anyone think of that before? It’s the continuation of a narrative where if players just wanted to win then they would because that’s how life works.

If wanting something more than anybody else made things happen then where is my Al Sobotka bobblehead?

Wheels up! What are we facing tonight?

Out of the Jets’ last 4 games, they’ve scored 5+ goals in three of them (7, 2, 7, 5). The Jets are a well-rounded team, with Blake Wheeler leading the offence, Jacob Trouba on defense and solid goaltending in Michigan-native (oh no) Connor Hellebuyck. Even Dustin Byfuglien is hanging around in good form. Keep an eye on Patrik Laine too, he’s working his way out of a scoring slump and will be looking to take advantage of our shaky defense to build up his confidence.

The Jets are at that point where the media is starting to believe they might actually be The Real Thing. Even whispering about not just playoff runs but parades. But we can win, we can beat good teams and rain on their parades, and nothing feels better than watching another fanbase scream because they lost to your “garbage team”.

We would know, we spent a lot of time on the other side of that scenario.

Let’s Go Red Wings!

P.S. Jimmy, Hank, you gotta get it together my dudes, we can’t do this without you.

Red Wings Projected Lines (Per yesterday’s practice)

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
Xavier Ouellet

Jimmy Howard
Petr Mrazek

Jets Projected lines

Mathieu Perreault - Mark Scheifele - Blake Wheeler
Nikolaj Ehlers - Bryan Little - Patrik Laine
Andrew Copp - Adam Lowry - Brandon Tanev
Shawn Matthias - Matt Hendricks - Joel Armia

Josh Morrissey - Jacob Trouba
Ben Chiarot - Dustin Byfuglien
Dmitry Kulikov - Tyler Myers

Connor Hellebuyck
Eric Comrie

Gameday Prediction Contest

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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!