10:00p EST, Honda Center

Anaheim, CA

TV: FS-D

Radio: 97.1 FM The Ticket // 1270 AM CBS Sports Radio

Ducks Blog: Anaheim Calling

Twelve games to go in the Red Wings season. It has been fun at times, heartbreaking at others and frustrating more than anything else. The current losing streak hammered down the final nail in the Wings long shot hopes of a playoff push and the current West Coast road trip has hammered home to fans how nice it is to not have to deal with these late night starts more often anymore. Tonight the Wings will look to play spoiler some more as they head into the Pond, I mean the Honda Center, to take on the Anaheim Ducks.

Anaheim is similar yet different from the teams Wings fans loved to hate for the last 12 or so years. They still have familiar (despised) faces in Ryan Getzlaf and Corey Perry playing important roles but it is newer players like Rickard Rakell and Adam Henrique leading the way offensively (although Getzlaf and Perry are two and three on the team in points). Jakob Silfverberg and Ondrej Kase have also put together nice seasons as secondary scorers and have picked up the slack left by Ryan Kesler’s disappointing season. The blue line has been a big source of offensive success for Anaheim as well with four defensemen contributing at least 25 points…and this is after they lost Shea Theadore to Vegas and traded Sami Vatanen (who both have at least 20 points for their respective team as well). Coincidently, those four defensemen are all under the age of 27. This is what I can only hope Detroit’s defense can look like in a couple years. In net, John Gibson has had the lion’s share of starts over Ryan Miller with both posting identical .926 save percentages. This is a really good Anaheim Ducks team that can skate, are dangerous from the blue line out, have some decent scoring depth along three forward lines and their top two defensive pairings and have had steady goaltending from both their starter and backup.

On paper this is not a game I expect the Red Wings to win. Anaheim can keep up with the speed of the Red Wings younger forwards and the shall we say exuberance for “old school hockey” will put a ton of pressure on a very weak Red Wings blue line. All that said, draft pick be dammed for a night. As long as Ryan Getzlaf, Corey Perry and Ryan Kesler are on the Ducks and Henrik Zetterberg is on the Red Wings there is always the chance of a classic Ducks meltdown, something I would love to see (tomorrow morning when I watch the replay).

Predicted Lineups

Detroit Red Wings

After playing last night who knows what, if any, changes the Red Wings will make to the lineup besides Jimmy Howard in net. Hopefully we will have a better idea for you in the Update. For now, we will go with how they started out last night in LA.

Forwards

Tyler Bertuzzi - Henrik Zetterberg – Gustav Nyquist

Anthony Mantha – Dylan Larkin – Darren Helm

Andreas Athanasiou – Frans Nielsen – Justin Abdelkader

Evgeny Svechnikov – Luke Glendening – Martin Frk

Defense

Jonathan Ericsson – Trevor Daley

Danny DeKeyser – Mike Green

Niklas Kronwall – Nick Jensen

Goalie

Jimmy Howard

Jared Coreau

Scratches: David Booth, Luke Witkowski, Xavier Ouellet

Injuries: Johan Franzen (LTIR)

ANAHEIM DUCKS

Lineup from Daily Faceoff

Forwards

Rickard Rakell – Ryan Getzlaf – Corey Perry

Andrew Cogliano – Ryan Kesler – Jakob Silfverberg

Nick Ritchie – Adam Henrique – Ondrej Kase

Chris Kelly – Derek Grant – J.T. Brown

Defense

Cam Fowler – Brandon Montour

Josh Manson – Hampus Lindholm

Francois Beauchemin – Kevin Bieksa

Goalie

John Gibson

Ryan Miller

Injuries: Patrick Eaves