Gooooooooooooooooooooooood afternoon Winging It In Motown!
The weekend crew is in to mop up the mess with a few quick updates on tonight’s game in Uniondale at the Nassau Mausoleum. First, let’s start off with the “ugly tweet of the day” with John Buccigross at ESPN:
Red Wings: winless in last 5 games (lost last 4 in OT/shootout). Red Wings: lost 6 straight games that went to OT/shootout
— John Buccigross (@Buccigross) November 16, 2013
Yes, that is one ugly statistic.
As reported in the morning skate, Luke Glendening will have to use his Red Wings gas card yet again as he has been recalled from Grand Rapids. Daniel Alfredsson is most likely out tonight with a groin injury, but he’s slated as a game time decision.
Also, the Red Wings will only have to worry about one star player on the other side tonight instead of two, as Tomas Vanek is indeed scratched. The Islanders are also without Lubomir Visnovsky and Brian Strait, leaving their back end with something to desire. (You can read that however you’d like.) The Islanders will be wearing their hideous third jerseys tonight, as if they hadn’t learned their lesson the first time they tried to recreate their image.
It might be a good idea to listen on the radio instead of watching the game, as your eyes may bleed at the site of these jerseys.
Bottom line, if the Red Wings cannot beat the Islanders, there’s a problem. They’re a banged up team that has been prone to late collapses and a lack of chemistry, mainly because Garth Snow decided to fix something that wasn’t broken.
Islanders are 3-6-0 since the Vanek-Moulson trade. Great work.
— Dave Lozo (@DaveLozo) November 15, 2013
Last night didn’t go as swimmingly as we had all hoped it would, and it can’t help but be suggested that whichever team loses tonight will come out feeling downright dejected.
Here are tonight’s lineups for the Islanders:
Fordwards:
| Brock Nelson | John Tavares | Kyle Okposo |
| Pierre-Marc Bouchard | Frans Nielsen | Josh Bailey |
| Michael Grabner | Peter Regin | Colin McDonald |
| Matt Martin | Casey Cizikas | Cal Clutterbuck |
Defense:
| Andrew MacDonald | Travis Hamonic |
| Matt Donovan | Thomas Hickey |
| Aaron Ness | Matt Carkner |
Goaltending:
| Swiss Cheese |
| Kevin Poulin |
Barring any strange circumstances, tonight’s game will be live tweeted from Buffalo Wild Wings on State Street in Ann Arbor, Michigan over on @WIIMGame. As always, try to be funny, tweet at us, and maybe one of the two accounts will retweet you and/or not insult you.
The GameThread on SB Nation will go live just before faceoff, so try not to get too rough. There’s only so much to do on Long Island in the winter, so please lay off of any attendance jokes that you may be thinking of sharing because a) The Joe has been lacking recently because hockey season always starts in March and b) it’s a Saturday night with two slumping teams.
That being said, there should be quite a Wings turnout tonight at the Coliseum. I’ll see you on Twitter and on the other side for tonight’s recap.
