Vancouver Canucks vs. Detroit Red Wings: Updates, Lineups, Keys to the Game

Updates:

Note: That doesn’t mean he’s playing tonight (he’s not), but it’s good to see him back on the ice.

No Boeser tonight is obviously good for Detroit. The lineup below for Vancouver is from Daily Faceoff after the Boeser news was disclosed.

Lineups:

Red Wings

Darren Helm - Dylan Larkin - Anthony Mantha
Michael Rasmussen - Frans Nielsen - Gustav Nyquist
Tyler Bertuzzi - Jacob de la Rose - Luke Glendening
Justin Abdelkader - Wade Megan - Martin Frk

Trevor Daley - Mike Green
Danny DeKeyser - Nick Jensen
Niklas Kronwall - Dennis Cholowski

Jimmy Howard
Jonathan Bernier

Canucks

Tim Schaller - Bo Horvat - Jake Virtanen
Nikolay Goldobin - Elias Pettersson - Brandon Leipsic
Antoine Rousel - Markus Granlund - Loui Eriksson
Tyler Motte- Adam Gaudette - Darren Archibald

Ben Hutton - Erik Gudbranson
Michael Del Zotto - Troy Stecher
Derrick Pouliot - Chris Tanev

Jacob Markstrom
Richard Bachman

Keys to the Game

Can the Larkins Keep Up with the Petterssons

This is going to be a reoccurring theme for the Red Wings a lot going forward. If they are going to find success is is going to start with Dylan Larkin’s line. He is the unofficial leader and arguably their best player. They need him to continue to be both while also trying to slow down one of the hottest stories in the early season in rookie sensation Elias Pettersson.

Scorers Scoring More

It probably sounds like an obvious statement, but the Red Wings really need the guys they expect to carry the goal scoring load for the team to do so. Technically speaking they somewhat are as Dylan Larkin, Andreas Athanasiou and Anthony Mantha are three of the four top goal scorers on the team. The problem is Larkin leads the bunch with six and Mantha, the one people expected to be the top goal scorer this season, has only three in 14 games. Mantha has looked better in recent games and they are going to need him to find a spicy meatball or two tonight.

Be Aggressive, B E Aggressive

Vancouver is not an overly physical team. The Red Wings have some players who are at their best when there is some physicality to their game. They also have some very good forecheckers (even without Athanasiou or Nielsen). They need to use that aggressiveness to force turnovers and then get to the front of the net for a few of those “greasy goals” good teams seem to find.