Morning Skate: Red Wings at Bruins
Game 37
7:00p ET, TD Garden
Boston MA
TV: Fox Sports Detroit, NBCSN, TVA
Radio: 97.1 The Ticket
Bruins Blogs: Stanley Cup Of Chowder
First off, I want to take a moment to appreciate Slapshotgoal's banner pic artwork. I think she really captured the essence of our rivals tonight. Hats off for that.
The Bruins welcome Detroit to the TD Garden in a strange position. They're 6th in the Atlantic right now. They have as many games played as the Wings, but trail Detroit by eight points in the standings. They trail Washington for the last wild card spot in the East by three points and the Caps have a game in hand. They're one point behind Florida with three more games played than the cats. Boston is in trouble this year. Injuries have rocked the Bruins, as they've spent plenty of time without guys like Zdeno Chara, David Krejci, and Patrice Bergeron.
If the Bruins are going to climb back into playoff position, they're going to have to start winning games soon. Hell, they were going to have to start winning games on Saturday, but they failed to do that, dropping a 6-2 decision to the Blue Jackets while the Wings were clawing back to steal two points from Ottawa. This is a game the Red Wings need to win and in no-doubt kind of fashion. Boston is going to be angry about their embarrassing loss to Columbus and they're going to want to take it out on Detroit because the Bruins are petty and bad people. A Red Wings team with killer instinct drops the skate blade on the neck of this struggling bear.
The Expected Lines (subject to change... Duh)
Forwards
| Henrik Zetterberg | Pavel Datsyuk | Justin Abdelkader |
| Tomas Tatar | Riley Sheahan | Stephen Weiss |
| Johan Franzen | Darren Helm | Gustav Nyquist |
| Drew Miller | Luke Glendening | Tomas Jurco |
Defensemen
| Niklas Kronwall | Jonathan Ericsson |
| Kyle Quincey | Danny DeKeyser |
| Brendan Smith | Brian Lashoff |
Goaltenders
| Jimmy Howard (starting) |
| Petr Mrazek |
Scratches: Jakub Kindl, & Daniel Cleary, Joakim Andersson
Injuries: Jonas Gustavsson (shoulder)
Forwards
| Reilly Smith | Brad Marchand | Seth Griffith |
| Matt Fraser | David Krejci | Craig Cunningham |
| Chris Kelly | Carl Soderberg | Loui Eriksson |
| Daniel Paille | Gregory Campbell | Jordan Caron |
Defensemen
| Zdeno Chara | Dougie Hamilton |
| Matt Bartkowski | Dennis Seidenberg |
| Torey Krug | Kevan Miller |
Goaltenders
| Tuukka Rask (starting) |
| Niklas Svedberg |
| BRUINS | THE MATCH-UP | RED WINGS |
| 18-15-3 (39 pts; 4th in WC Race) | Record | 19-8-9 (47 pts; 2nd in Atlantic) |
| 2.53 (21st in NHL) | Goals Per Game | 2.83 (13th in NHL) |
| 2.64 (16th) | Goals Against Per Game | 2.28 (4th) |
| 16.5% (21st) | Power Play % | 24.3% (3rd) |
| 79.3% (21st) | Penalty Kill % | 88.4% (2nd) |
| Brad Marchand (10 goals) | Goal Leader | Gustav Nyquist (15) |
| Patrice Bergeron (27 points) | Points Leader | Henrik Zetterberg (32 points) |
- The Red Wings are 253-235-95-2 (W-L-T-OTL) all-time in the regular season against the Boston Bruins.
- Last 10 Games: Detroit 4-2-4, Bruins 4-4-2
- Jimmy Howard is 5-1-1 with a 1.95 GAA and .937 SV% in 7 career games against the Bruins. /