The heat of the rivalry may have been turned down to a low simmer, but it’s always a fun time when the Blackhawks and Red Wings get together. For many years, the Hawks looked to the Wings as the measuring stick for whether they were good enough to win Cups; those roles have been switched, and now it’s a younger Red Wing team that will see if they can get a victory against a very strong team.
The morning skates were pretty standard, and no surprises came out of them for either team. The Red Wings will continue to roll with the lineup that has won the last 3 games, although Petr Mrazek will get the nod in goal after overcoming his horrific groin injury, while the Blackhawks will insert Christian Ehrhoff into the lineup while still missing Marian Hossa and Dale Weise due to injury and immigration issues, respectively.
Line Combinations
Red Wings Expected Lineups
Forwards
| Henrik Zetterberg | Pavel Datsyuk | Justin Abdelkader |
| Gustav Nyquist | Riley Sheahan | Tomas Tatar |
| Brad Richards | Andreas Athanasiou | Dylan Larkin |
| Darren Helm | Luke Glendening | Tomas Jurco |
Defensemen
| Kyle Quincey | Danny DeKeyser |
| Niklas Kronwall | Alexey Marchenko |
| Jonathan Ericsson | Mike Green |
Goaltenders
| Petr Mrazek (starting) |
| Jimmy Howard |
Scratches: Teemu Pulkkinen, Brendan Smith
Injuries: Johan Franzen, Drew Miller
Power-play units:
- Nyquist-Datsyuk-Zetterberg-Abdelkader (net front)-Kronwall
- Tatar-Larkin-Richards-Jurco (Net-Front)-Green
Blackhawks Expected Lineups
Forwards
| Andrew Ladd | Jonathan Toews | Andrew Shaw |
| Artemi Panarin | Artem Anisimov | Patrick Kane |
| Andrew Desjardins | Teuvo Teravainen | Tomas Fleischmann |
| Brandon Mashinter | Dennis Rasmussen | Richard Panik |
Defensemen
| Duncan Keith | Niklas Hjalmarsson |
| Erik Gustafsson | Brent Seabrook |
| Christian Ehrhoff | Trevor van Riemsdyk |
Goaltenders
| Corey Crawford (starting) |
| Scott Darling |
Fun Facts!
Red Wings all-time record against Chicago: 366-266-84-13 (W-L-T-OTL)
Red Wings goals for per game (GF/G) against the Blackhawks: 3.11
Red Wings goals against per game (GA/G) against the Blackhawks: 2.75
Key Matchups
Red Wings power play vs. Chicago penalty kill
The Red Wings ended an 0-for-20 skid on the power play with Pavel Datsyuk’s OT winner against Dallas on Monday. The Wings’ troubles on the power play have been well documented, but tonight they get to face the NHL’s 22nd best PK unit. The PP hasn’t looked great, but they should do what they can to take advantage of one of the few glaring weaknesses on this Chicago team.
Red Wings 3rd line vs Blackhawks bottom 2 defense pairs
Andreas Athanasiou had a fantastic performance against Dallas, and has combined with Dylan Larkin and Brad Richards to give the Wings a dangerous depth scoring line. I have to assume that Joel Quenneville will use his top pairing of Keith and Hjalmarsson against Datsyuk and Zetterberg, so the third line may be able to use their speed to exploit a less-than-mobile defense pairing, regardless of who is out there.
Our ears vs Ed Olczyk
Over/under on the number of times “subtle interference” is mentioned tonight: 3.5.
Let’s Go Red Wings.
