Your Detroit Red Wings have the unenviable task of stopping an 8-game home winless skid tonight. How are they going to do it?
Red Wings
- In case you stayed curled up in a fetal position after the shutout loss to Nashville and still haven’t heard the news, Gustav Nyquist has been officially recalled today and will play on the second line with Johan Franzen and Henrik Zetterberg.
- Which means that, yes, the Eurotwins have been split up again. And yes, Pavel Datsyuk will be playing with Dan Cleary on his wing.
- All that really means to say is that the projected forward lines haven’t changed from the Morning Skate. And Jimmy Howard is getting the start.
- D-pairs have minor updates: the Kyle Quincey-Brendan Smith comedy act gets another go-around and will hopefully make us laugh at the number of pucks going into the opposing team’s net when they’re on the ice instead of our own net. Quincey apparently suffered a knee injury in the Nashville game which I didn’t learn about until I started putting together this post.
- And Brian Lashoff will skate with Jakub Kindl.
- There are a lot of bullets here, but not much news. Danny DeKeyser will miss about a month with a separated shoulder, and he no likey.
- And hey! It looks like Stephen Weiss will probably get into the lineup Saturday against Ottawa! Bets are now being taken for who gets hurt next when he returns because that’s apparently how the universe works.
- Finally, as with Chris Chelios on Tuesday, the Red Wings will honor Brendan Shanahan tonight on his Hall of Fame induction. I guess that’s one good thing to come from the Shanahan not being first-ballot: we get to have Hall of Fame week at the Joe.
Hurricanes
- Carolina recently completed a 4-0-1 homestand, which followed a 5-game overall losing streak. The Red Wings should take notes; you want numbers on the left, not the right (and especially not the middle) (and especially at home).
- In the 2 games since that homestand, the Hurricanes took a literal beating at the hands of the St. Louis Blues and the Boston Bruins.
- Because of that physicality, Alexander Semin has been sidelined with
an upper-body injurya concussion. - In keeping with the injury give-and-take, Jeff Skinner gets back into the Hurricanes’ lineup tonight after missing the last 11 games with
an upper-body injuryan upper-body injury. I can’t say the Hurricanes’ lineup strikes any fear in me, but adding back a guy like Skinner is definitely better for the road team tonight. - And lastly, Justin Peters will get the start tonight. A fact I was not expecting to read about him:
Peters had started 10 consecutive games with Ward and Anton Khudobin (ankle) both out with injuries.
—Chip AlexanderWith Cam Ward just recently coming back from an injury, it might be more accurate to consider Carolina goaltending a 1a-1b situation until Ward gets back up to speed.
- Hurricanes’ projected lines:
I like streaks. A lot. I like to see how long they can keep going. The one exception is when the Red Wings are on a losing streak. That shit sucks. I want that to end, and in its place, I can see another streak continue (emphasis mine):
#Canes franchise hasn’t won regular-season game in Detroit since Nov. 14, 1989. DET hasn’t won at home in 8 games. Something’s gotta give.
— Michael Smith (@MSmithCanes) November 21, 2013
The Hurricanes were the Hartford Whalers when they last won in Detroit. Keep it that way. We ripped victory from the Hurricanes in their barn last time out. Keep it for ourselves this time around.
LET’S GO RED WINGS!!!
