Morning Skate: Vancouver Canucks vs. Detroit Red Wings - Preview, How to Watch

Time: 7:30pm ET

Place: Little Caesars Arena

TV: FSD

Radio: 97.1 FM The Ticket, 1270 AM

Canucks blog: Nucks Misconduct

Putting up a consistent effort is often the thing that separates a team with potential from a good team. The Red Wings learned this first hand last time out as they simply could not match the effort they had put out the previous three games and eventually fell to the Edmonton Oilers 4-3. The main bright spot was the play of the Gustav Nyquist-Jacob de la Rose-Michael Rasmussen line. The Wings will need that effort to continue as well as a return to a stronger effort by others on the team who seemed to be out of sorts on Saturday. It will be vital for them to do so tonight as they welcome the somewhat surprising Vancouver Canucks into the Dough Joe.

Vancouver has started out the season 9-6-0, good enough for 18 points and second place in the Pacific Division. Up front, Vancouver is buoyed by trio of Bo Horvat (7G/4A/11Pts), Brock Boeser (4/7/11) and early Calder Trophy Leader, the electric Elias Pettersson (9/6/15). Their blue line is steady if unspectacular, with Ben Hutton, Erik Gudbranson,Derrick Pouliot and Michael Del Zotto leading the defensemen in ice time and 24 year old Tyler Stecher leading them in points with six. Jacob Markstrom (9 games, .899 SV%) and Anders Nilsson (6 games, .912) have basically split the time between the pipes with just enough stops. As good as a start as it has been for Vancouver, injuries have become a concern as several key players are missing from a lineup that was already somewhat thin. Sven Baertschi, Jay Beagle, Brandon Sutter, Alexander Elder, Chris Tanev and the previously mentioned Nilsson are all currently on injured reserve with only Tanev possible to return to the lineup tonight.

Speaking of injuries, there is no real new news regarding the status of Andreas Athanasiou, Frans Nielsen or Jonathan Ericsson. As of writing this it is not yet known if any will be in the lineup tonight for the Red Wings. The only known loss Tomas Vanek as he continues to recover from a “lower-body injury” and is expected to miss a couple more weeks. If none of them can go expect to see the same lineup for the Red Wings as they will look to make it 4 out of their last 5 against a good, young Canucks team.

This will not be an easy one (as if any of them are these days) for the Red Wings. Vancouver is banged up but they still have dynamic talents in Horvat and Pettersson up front leading the offense. This will be a similar test as the Edmonton game for the Red Wings. Can they find a way to slow down a couple really talented forwards who like to “run and gun” without sacrificing their own production offensively?