Morning Skate: Red Wings at Blackhawks Preview

8:30p ET, United Center

Chicago, IL

TV: Fox Sports Detroit Plus, NHL Network (US), RDS

Radio: 97.1 The Ticket

Blackhawks Blogs: Second City Hockey

Detroit Red Wings Tickets

Tonight could get really, really ugly. It might not be the ugliness of a 7-1 ass kicking, but it’s going to get bad, folks. Let’s not kid ourselves with tonight’s game. The Red Wings have a chance to win, but the likelihood of this team going into Chicago and taking a win and two points from the Blackhawks probably isn’t in the cards. The worst part about it all? A loss is going to turn the fan base into a bunch of blubbering fools who will be at each other’s throats. It isn’t likely to occur here. Unless your name is Greg, our readers are generally a classy bunch. The rest of the fan base though? Twitter is going to be a potential nightmare. Especially if the Stars, Coyotes and Blue Jackets all win. I’m not sure how old all our readers are, but if you’re like me, this season is all uncharted waters. The Wings haven’t missed the playoffs since I was 2-years-old. I’m 25 now. That’s pretty crazy. I don’t know how to deal with the lack of a postseason and I’m sure others are in the same exact boat.

What I can tell you though is that this team does care. It might look like they don’t care at times on the ice, but that’s just the sad reality that the talent on this team just isn’t there like it used to be. Some of the names might be the same as the past, but they’re older and declining in speed and skill. Like I said, it’s uncharted waters. It’s a whole new world of Red Wings hockey. It’s a dog fight to the end and there is a real threat of golfing full time in three weeks. Maybe they can pull off the upset today. Do I expect it? Nope. But I sure as hell would love to be pleasantly surprised. Let’s go, Red Wings. Steal a couple points and help us rest a little bit easier the next couple days.

The Expected Lineup

Henrik Zetterberg – Pavel Datsyuk – Justin Abdelkader

Drew Miller – Johan Franzen – Gustav Nyquist

Daniel Cleary – Valtteri Filppula – Damien Brunner

Cory Emmerton – Joakim Andersson – Patrick Eaves

*

Niklas Kronwall – Jonathan Ericsson

Brendan Smith – Kyle Quincey

Danny DeKeyser – Jakub Kindl

*

Jimmy Howard (starting)

Jonas Gustavsson

Scratches: Jordin Tootoo, Ian White, Brian Lashoff and Carlo Colaiacovo

Injuries: Mikael Samuelsson (upper body), Todd Bertuzzi (back) and Darren Helm (back)

• The Red Wings are 363-265-84-12 (W-L-T-OTL) all-time against the Chicago Blackhawks.
• Chicago has won three games-in-a-row including two 1-0 shutout wins.
• The Wings are 5-1-0 on Fridays this season. Gotta get down on Friday.
• The last time these two teams met was March 31. The Blackhawks scored 7 goals en route to a 7-1 victory. Emmerton scored the Wings lone goal.
• Detroit is 5-4-1 in their last 10 games. Chicago is 6-3-1.
• Howard is 4-7-4 with a 2.86 GAA and .903 SV% in 16 career regular starts against the Sharks Blackhawks.

Prediction: Detroit wins 3-2.

Let’s Go Red Wings.