Morning Skate: Canadiens at Red Wings
7:30p ET, Joe Louis Arena
Detroit, MI
TV: Fox Sports Detroit, NHL Network
Radio: 97.1 The Ticket/1270 AM
Habs Blog: Eyes On The Prize
Tonight is the beginning of a very important stretch for the Red Wings. The next four games on tap: tonight vs Montreal, Saturday vs Pittsburgh, Monday vs Buffalo and Tuesday at Montreal. Three very winnable games and the Pens. If the Wings don't earn at least six points from this stretch, they don't deserve to make the playoffs.
The Habs won their last game 4-3 over the Ducks at home, but they're 4-6-0 in their last 10 games. PK Subban will miss his 7th straight game due to a neck injury. Carey Price is still out too. So right there the two best players for the Habs are out. Does it guarantee a victory? Of course not, but this is a game the Wings should win.
Just so everyone is aware, puck drop is technically just after 7:30, but you probably don't have to tune in until around... let's say 8p ET. That's about the time the Wings will realize they're wearing skates and involved in a hockey game. You might miss a Habs goal or two, but Jonathan Ericsson likely just gave up the line too easily, Lars Eller skated around Niklas Kronwall, Petr Mrazek didn't control the rebound well enough and Torrey Mitchell tapped in his 10th goal of the season... something like that.
Detroit Expected Lineup
Forwards
| Dylan Larkin | Henrik Zetterberg | Justin Abdelkader |
| Tomas Tatar | Pavel Datsyuk | Anthony Mantha |
| Gus Nyquist | Riley Sheahan | Andreas Athanasiou |
| Darren Helm | Luke Glendening | Brad Richards |
Defensemen
| Brendan Smtih | Mike Green |
| Danny DeKeyser | Kyle Quincey |
| Niklas Kronwall | Jonathan Ericsson |
Goaltenders
| Petr Mrazek |
| Jimmy Howard |
Scratches: Teemu Pulkkinen, Tomas Jurco, Alexey Marchenko
Injuries: Drew Miller, Johan Franzen
Montreal Expected Lineup
Forwards
| Max Pacioretty | Alex Galchenyuk | Paul Byron |
| Lars Eller | Tomas Plekanec | Torrey Mitchell |
| Stefan Matteau | Michael McCarron | Phillip Danault |
| Lucas Lessio | Jacob De La Rose | Mike Brown |
Defensemen
| Andrei Markov | Alexei Emelin |
| Nathan Beaulieu | Greg Pateryn |
| Joel Hanley | Darren Dietz |
Goaltenders
| Mike Condon |
| Ben Scrivens |
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Game Day Prediction Contest
Would you like to predict the outcome of the game and potentially become internet famous? Well you're in luck, because here's your opportunity. Here's how it works.
Make your game predictions on the winning team, final score, and who the Wings player of the game will be. Enter the required information into the form below using the formats indicated in the questions. If you don't use those formats, your answers will be disregarded. All submissions are timestamped and will be accepted only until the official game start time. All other submissions after that will be disregarded. Only one submission per person, please. POTG will be determined by the collective of WiiM writers.
Each correct winning team prediction is worth 1 point. Each correct player of the game prediction is worth 2 points. Each correct final score prediction is worth 5 points. If you get all three correct you'll receive 15 points.