Gameday Updates: Lightning at Red Wings

Red Wings

• Jonas Gustavsson gets the start today, giving Jimmy Howard a brief spell before the terrifying last few games of the season.
• Darren Helm gave us a bit of a scare yesterday, but he’s definitely in the lineup tonight.
• Oh, and about that last linked tweet? Justin Abdelkader makes his return to the lineup tonight. I’m not seeing any news on whom he replaces.

Lightning

• Tampa Bay is doing pretty well for itself, riding an 11-game point streak into Joe Louis Arena tonight. A win tonight puts them second in the division ahead of Montreal by virtue of fewer games played.
• Nothing confirmed, but LeftWingLock pegs Anders Lindback as the probable starter.
• The projected lineup for the Tampa Bay “currently winning the St. Louis trade” Lightning:
  FORWARDS

  Alex “going in for the” Killorn	Steven “two players with s alliterations” Stamkos	Teddy “bear” Purcell
  Ondrej “not to be confused with Pavelec” Palat	Valtteri “hand-wringing” Filppula	Ryan “who you gonna” Callahan
  J. T. “likes the color” Brown	Tyler Johnson	Nikita “not touching that” Kucherov
  Ryan “don’t be sad, you’re not” Malone	Nate “Nay-tom-son” Thompson	B. J. “crom-om-nom” Crombeen

  DEFENSE

  Victor “will have your” Hedman	Sami “is too much for one team” Salo
  Matt “driving around in that” Carle	Radko “is he really that” Gudas
  Eric “not the Milwaukee” Brewer	Mike “what’s the” Kostka

  GOALTENDING

  Anders “he’s got your” Lindback

  Ben “didn’t go to church today” Bishop

Out of Town Scoreboard

Boston Bruins at Philadelphia Flyers and Chicago Blackhawks at Pittsburgh Penguins: With the top three spots in the Atlantic pretty well out of reach barring a Red Wings run and Lightning/ Canadiens freefall, the Red Wings if they make the playoffs will be one of the wild card seeds. Boston is pretty entrenched at the top of the Eastern Conference, so 1-2 will likely be Boston-Pittsburgh respectively, meaning the Red Wings face one or the other in round one.

Washington Capitals at Nashville Predators: Washington faced a tough test on Saturday, but they fell to Boston, leaving them two points back of the final wild card spot. Columbus, Detroit, and Washington all have 8 games remaining going into Sunday, but Washington is heavily handicapped in tiebreakers by having only 25 regulation or overtime wins.

Columbus is idle tonight, so a win against a team we’ve struggled against this season can do lots of things. It will put us two points ahead and into the first wild card spot, even if Columbus has one game in hand after tonight; it should be a huge confidence boost if we can finally beat a team we’ve struggled against all season; and it should end this week on a high note after the miserable start against Columbus and Montreal.

LET’S GO RED WINGS!!!