Morning Skate: Red Wings vs Stars
8:00p ET, American Airlines Center
Dallas, TX
TV: Fox Sports Detroit
Radio: 97.1 The Ticket
Stars Blog: Defending Big D
Storming in off a thrilling win against the Chicago Blackhawks, Detroit looks to gain ground in the standings against the Dallas Stars. Let's be honest, this is going to be the easier of the match-ups on this road trip.. So I hope that Detroit can gather momentum as they make their push into California. Get ready for that, folks. Remember 10:30 pm starts? BLEGH.
Dallas is missing some key players in their lineup, one of which being their all-star leading point-getter Tyler Seguin, who will likely not return this season. On top of that, they are missing Ales Hemsky and Valeri Nichushkin. The Stars are in a bit of a pinch, in addition to missing their best player, their defense has been lackluster to what the offense has been all season long. Detroit has a really good chance to burn them up with their league-leading power play unit, as Dallas' PK has been mediocre. Hey, maybe we can get some calls since we didn't get shit in Chicago. Wishful thinking.
Hey, did you know that Jim Nill used to work for the Red Wings? Did you know this? Did you? I'll bet you didn't.
Anyways, Detroit is in a good spot to win this game.. So take what you will from that. The key match-up here is the 2nd line. Tatar-Datsyuk-Helm vs Roussel-Eakin-Garbutt? Forget about it. Let's get a W tonight. Get fired up, gang!
UPDATES FROM KHAN(!):
The Expected Lineups
Forwards
| Justin Abdelkader | Henrik Zetterberg | Teemu Pulkkinen |
| Tomas Tatar | Pavel Datsyuk | Darren Helm |
| Gustav Nyquist | Riley Sheahan | Stephen Weiss |
| Drew Miller | Luke Glendening | Tomas Jurco |
Defensemen
| Niklas Kronwall | Jonathan Ericsson |
| Jakub Kindl | Danny DeKeyser |
| Brendan Smith | Alexey Marchenko |
Goaltenders
| Jimmy Howard (starting) |
| Jonas Gustavsson |
Keep in mind that reports are stating that Quincey might be injured and out of tonight's game, and Kindl has been called up.. So there is a good chance that we might see some shuffling on the D pairings.
Scratches: Daniel Cleary, Joakim Andersson
Injuries: Johan Franzen (headaches), Kyle Quincey
Forwards
| Jamie Benn | Jason Spezza | Erik Cole |
| Antoine Roussel | Cody Eakin | Ryan Garbutt |
| Curtis McKenzie | Vernon Fiddler | Brett Ritchie |
| Brendan Ranford | Shawn Horcoff | Colton Sceviour |
Defensemen
| Alex Goligoski | John Klingberg |
| Jyrki Jokipakka | Trevor Daley |
| Jordie Benn | Jason Demers |
Goaltenders
| Keri Lehtonen (starting) |
| Jhonas Enroth |
| STARS | THE MATCH-UP | RED WINGS |
| 27-23-8 (62 pts; 6th in Central) | Record | 32-14-10 (74 pts; 3rd in Atlantic) |
| 3.09 (4th in NHL) | Goals Per Game | 2.86 (9th in NHL) |
| 3.16 (27th) | Goals Against Per Game | 2.41 (4th) |
| 17.7% (19th) | Power Play % | 25.9% (1st) |
| 80.0% (21st) | Penalty Kill % | 83.3% (7th) |
| Tyler Seguin (29 goals) | Goal Leader | Tomas Tatar (24 goals) |
| Tyler Seguin (59 points) | Points Leader | Henrik Zetterberg (49 points) |
- The Red Wings are 59-36-8 (W-L-OT) all-time in the regular season against the Stars
- Last 10 Games: Dallas 5-4-1, Detroit 6-3-1/
- Henrik Zetterberg has 44 points (11 goals, 33 assists) in 38 career games against the Stars/
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>Based on the skate it looks like Jurco is back in the lineup and Andersson out.</p>— Ansar Khan (@AnsarKhanMLive) <a href="https://twitter.com/AnsarKhanMLive/status/569189725623332864">February 21, 2015</a></blockquote>
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