Morning Skate: Jets at Red Wings

7:30p ET, Joe Louis Arena

Detroit, MI

TV: FSD, NHLN-US

Radio: 97.1 FM The Ticket // 1270 AM CBS Sports Radio

Jets Blog: Arctic Ice Hockey

Stop me if you’ve heard this before: the Detroit Red Wings are struggling post-trade deadline when they need to be racking up the points needed to secure a playoff spot. Sound familiar? That’s because it’s the same script the team followed last season, though of course Detroit didn’t make any trades at the deadline this go around.

We’ve just seen the Wings lose their third straight game, dropping into the second wild card spot at a stagnant 75 points while the teams ahead of them in the Atlantic pull ahead and the teams behind them in the wild card race draw closer. It’s one thing to lose back-to-back games against a very good Chicago squad, but to follow it up with a loss to very bad Columbus is another, especially when you consider this:

Lack of urgency was a common topic in the Red Wings locker room….Blashill was surprised by the lack of it given the importance of the game

— Ted Kulfan (@tkulfan) March 9, 2016

We’re all tired of watching this team scrap and claw its way into the post-season in the last quarter of the year. We’re all tired of this perceived lack of urgency when the players of the Red Wings know as well as we do the importance of late-season points. It’s time to dig in and get serious.

EDIT: My apologies for not mentioning this originally, but unless all of the diggers were sleeping on the job (not entirely unlikely), the Wings did not practice yesterday after the Tuesday’s loss. No one has reported possible changes either, or anything since Tuesday, really. We will be waiting on the edge of our seats for multiple tweets with identical information from the Wings’ morning skate for any possible changes. For now, the lines are simply presumed to be the same.

Red Wings Expected Lineups

Forwards

Defensemen

Goaltenders

Scratches: Teemu Pulkkinen, Brendan Smith

Injuries: Drew Miller (torn meniscus/ACL surgery), Johan Franzen (concussion)

Jets Expected Lineups

Forwards

Defensemen

Goaltenders

Let’s Go Red Wings!!!

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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.