Morning Skate: Red Wings at Ducks
10:30p ET, Honda Center
Anaheim, CA
TV: Fox Sports Detroit
Radio: 97.1 The Ticket
Ducks Blog: Anaheim Calling
Help us Steve Ott. You're our only hope.
If you haven't noticed lately, the Red Wings power play is a steaming pile of horse crap. They're last in the league at 11.7%. In the believe it or not category, the Wings haven't scored a power play goal on the road since October 19th when Thomas Vanek netted one at Madison Square Garden. That's insane.
So how do you fix the power play?
Enter Steve Ott.
Some new PP looks at #RedWings practice: Nielsen, Vanek, Nyquist, Larkin, Athanasiou and Zetterberg, Kronwall, Mantha, Tatar, Ott.
— Helene St. James (@HeleneStJames) January 3, 2017
Not going to lie. This is stupid. But screw it, I guess. The Red Wings are near the bottom of the standings. The power play is already dead last. We've clearly reached the point of the season where Jeff Blashill is throwing shit against the wall and hoping something sticks (FYI Jeff, hope is not a strategy).
And while we are all rolling our eyes at Ott on the power play, let's not miss the fact that the other new unit consists of 5 forwards.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
It's not like we have any real offensive defensemen with Mike Green still out. All I know is I'm really looking forward to see what zany thing Blashill does next!
Detroit Expected Lineup
Forwards
| Tomas Tatar | Henrik Zetterberg | Anthony Mantha |
| Gus Nyquist | Frans Nielsen | Thomas Vanek |
| Riley Sheahan | Dylan Larkin | Luke Glendening |
| Steve Ott | Andreas Athanasiou | Drew Miller |
Defensemen
| Danny DeKeyser | Nick Jensen |
| Jonathan Ericsson | Xavier Ouellet |
| Niklas Kronwall | Brendan Smith |
Goaltenders
| Jared Coreau |
| Petr Mrazek |
Scratches: Ryan Sproul, Tomas Jurco
Injuries: Mike Green, Jimmy Howard, Alexey Marchenko, Darren Helm & Justin Abdelkader
Anaheim Expected Lineup
Forwards
| Andrew Cogliano | Ryan Kesler | Jakob Silfverberg |
| Nick Ritchie | Ryan Getzlaf | Ondrej Kase |
| Rickard Rakell | Antoine Vermette | Corey Perry |
| Joseph Cramarossa | Logan Shaw | Brandon Montour |
Defensemen
| Cam Fowler | Sami Vatanen |
| Hampus Lindholm | Josh Manson |
| Korbinian Holzer | Bevin Kieksa |
Goaltenders
| John Gibson |
| Jonathan Bernier |
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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.