And we’re back! Twenty four hours or so later and the Red Wings will be at it again.
Colorado will honor one of the great competitors and divers from their battles against the Red Wings in the late 90s, Peter “Floppa” Forsberg. They will retire his number 21 and place it in the rafters alongside great, long time Avs like Ray Bourque. In my mind, I will always remember Forsberg for getting taken down by Igor Larionov way back in 1997, his awesome career in Nashville, and his 57 retirements.
Mile High Hockey is your SBNation Avalanche blog.
Puck drop is just after 9p ET.
The Expected Lineup
Jiri Hudler — Pavel Datsyuk — Danny Cleary
Valtteri Filppula — Henrik Zetterberg — Johan Franzen
Justin Abdelkader — Darren Helm — Todd Bertuzzi
Drew Miller — Cory Emmerton — Tomas Holmstrom
Jakub Kindl — Jonathan Ericsson
Jimmy Howard (starting)
Scratches: Fabian Brunnstrom and Patrick Eaves
Injuries: Mike Commodore (knee) and Jan Mursak (ankle)
Don’t be surprised to see the lineup juggled a bit. It’s the second night of a back-to-back to start the season and I wouldn’t be shocked to see Babcock get Brunnstrum and Eaves into the game to see some action. Who sits though? Most likely it would be the team’s leader scorers, Emmerton and Miller.
- Detroit is 57-39-5-5 (W-L-T-OTL) all-time against the Avalanche/Nordiques franchise.
- With a victory in Denver, the Red Wings would start the season with 2 straight wins for the 3rd time since the lockout. The Wings started the year 2-0-0 last season and began 3-0-0 in 2005-06.
- Yesterday I mentioned the Sens had 74 points and the last time the Wings had 74 points or less was the 1989-90 season when they finished with 70. Well it was worse for Colorado. The Avs finished with 68 points. They last time the Wings had 68 points or less? You have to go all the way back to the 1984-85 season. Three years before I was born.
- Not that it means anything, but the Avs finished 2-4-0 in the preseason. They even suck when the games don’t count.
- Another potential Calder candidate in tonight’s game. It will be the NHL debut of 2nd overall picks Gabriel Landeskog.
Prediction: It’s the Avs first game of the season and the Wings flew out west the night after a game. This has close contest written all over it. Red Wings win 3-2 and Filppula is your player of the game.
Let’s Go Red Wings.
