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Game Day Updates: Red Wings at Panthers

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Photo by Denys Kostyuchenko on Unsplash

Was it a new coach bump, or are the Red Wings a threat?

We’ll start to get a clearer picture of that answer with a difficult road trip ahead of the Red Wings, which Detroit begins with a matchup against the defending Stanley Cup-champion Florida Panthers tonight.

The Red Wings are still riding relatively high after ripping off seven straight victories before a disappointing 6-3 loss against the San Jose Sharks. Over the next four days, Detroit will visit Florida, Tampa Bay and Dallas before ending the road trip against Philadelphia — all good teams, all difficult places to play, but the immediate challenge against three of the top Stanley Cup favorites could be pretty telling for what the second half of the season will hold.

The goodwill earned by Todd McLellan’s 7-2-0 start behind Detroit’s bench is about to be stress-tested. There were certainly some quality wins in that run (Winnipeg, Washington and some surprise teams in Ottawa and Columbus). Still, it’s possible Tuesday’s letdown could be attributed to the relative ease with which the team moved past Chicago and Seattle to get that streak to seven.

As any coach will tell you, there are no easy nights in the NHL. This is probably the biggest test yet on how the team responds to the new coaching staff. It’s hard to walk into either arena in Florida and expect a win, but the competitive brand of hockey we’ve seen over the last three weeks is much more encouraging than the first several months of the season. It’s important for the Red Wings to sneak as many points as they can out of this trip, but being able to hang with the best teams in the league, like they largely were able to last year, would be an encouraging sign for the rest of the season.

How to Watch
Time: 7:00 p.m. EST
TV: ESPN
Radio: 97.1 The Ticket

Per practice reports, McLellan is largely keeping the lineup together, with Christian Fischer reinserted in place of the injured Tyler Motte, who is not expected to be out long-term. Alex Lyon is also on this trip, but it’ll be Cam Talbot in net tonight. I didn’t come across anything specific about Justin Holl after he was called out by McLellan the other night. I expect McLellan will give him a shot to redeem himself, but William Lagesson is available should they decide he needs a night off after a rough game against the Sharks.

Red Wings Projected Lineup
Kasper – Larkin – Raymond
DeBrincat – Copp – Kane
Berggren – Compher – Tarasenko
Rasmussen – Veleno – Fischer

Chiarot – Seider
Edvinsson – Johansson
Gustafsson – Holl

Talbot
Husso

The Panthers are relatively cold by their standards, sitting 4-5-1 in their last 10. They lost some defensive depth in the offseason, and Aaron Ekblad is currently day-to-day, so hopefully Detroit can capitalize on some less-proven names on the backend.

Panthers Projected Lineup
Tkachuk – Barkov – Reinhart
Luostarinen – Bennett – Samoskevich
Verhaeghe – Lundell – J. Boqvist
Rodrigues – Nosek – Greer

Forsling – Kulikov
Mikkola – Schmidt
Bjornfot – Balinskis

Bobrovsky
Knight

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