7:30p ET, Joe Louis Arena
Detroit, Michigan
TV: Fox Sports Detroit
Radio: 97.1 The Ticket
We’re back. After a draining loss against Les Canadiens de Montréal, the boys in red & white look to bounce back and put up the W on home ice.
It’s always pretty exciting when you have some of the best players in the world going head-to-head. I for one, cannot wait to see Luke Glendening go head-to-head with Sidney Crosby. Haha, yeah about that. Anyways, Detroit’s top-line has been magical to start the season, and it all starts with Henrik Zetterberg. He’s been playing out of his skin, and he’s got his work cut out for him against two of the best players in the world.
The highlight of this game is going to be special teams. Pittsburgh has the best power play squad in the league, and Detroit has the best penalty kill squad in the league.
If Detroit wants to come out on top, we need the power play to show up and capitalize. Plain & simple, the teams gotta put the biscuit in the basket. While Pittsburgh is extremely heavy on their top-six, their quite thin at the backend. Detroit can win this game by smart deployment. The Pens are coming off of a disappointing loss at the hands of Philadelphia (they are not very good) last night on home ice. Look for them to come out hungry. Detroit’s defense has performed quite well, and I think it’s a great matchup. Go get ’em, boys.
The Expected Lineups
Forwards
| Henrik Zetterberg | Pavel Datsyuk | Justin Abdelkader |
| Gustav Nyquist | Riley Sheahan | Tomas Tatar |
| Tomas Jurco | Darren Helm | Andrej Nestrasil |
| Joakim Andersson | Luke Glendening | Drew Miller |
Defensemen
| Niklas Kronwall | Jonathan Ericsson |
| Brendan Smith | Danny DeKeyser |
| Kyle Quincey | Jakub Kindl |
Goaltenders
| Jimmy Howard (starting) |
| Jonas Gustavsson |
Scratches: Daniel Cleary, Stephen Weiss & Brian Lashoff
Injuries: Johan Franzen (groin)
Forwards
| Chris Kunitz | Sidney Crosby | Patric Hornqvist |
| Pascal Dupuis | Brandon Sutter | Evgeni Malkin |
| Blake Comeau | Nick Spaling | Steve Downie |
| Zach Sill | Marcel Goc | Craig Adams |
Defensemen
| Christian Ehrhoff | Paul Martin |
| Olli Maatta | Kris Letang |
| Simon Despres | Rob Scuderi |
Goaltenders
| Thomas Greiss (Starting) |
| Marc-Andre Fleury |
Bullets of Knowledge
- The Red Wings are 43-16-12 all-time in the regular season at home against the Penguins.
- Sidney Crosby recently purchased a Luke Glendening jersey. I’m serious. No, really.. It happened.
- Henrik Zetterberg and Pavel Datsyuk have 18 combined points in 13 career regular season games against the Pens/
