Morning Skate: Red Wings at Hurricanes
Game 28
5:00p ET, PNC Arena
Raleigh, NC
TV: Fox Sports Detroit Plus
Radio: 97.1 The Ticket
Canes Blog: Canes Country
I'm enjoying this ride right now. Hell, if you're not enjoying the ride right now with this Red Wings team there's something wrong with you. This is a fun team and the start of the season has been above and beyond my expectations and, quite frankly, it seems everyone else's too.
Oh man… that 3rd period last night? Remember that? Those 5-on-3 PKs were beautiful. That was a championship caliber period for the Red Wings. Of course, let's not get too far ahead of ourselves here, there's still a long way to go in the season, but the Red Wings are in a great position at the moment. They've got a real nice mix of veterans and young guys throughout the lineup. The defense has played better than most anticipated. The specialty teams are both top 10 in the league. Hell, goals per game, goals against and 5-on-5 goals for/against ratio all land in the top 10. That's the sign of a pretty solid team. And we can't forget Jimmy Howard's solid bounce back performance so far.
I'll still contend that this team is a (right shooting?!?!) defenseman away from being elite, but they've shown us so far that the pieces are there to contend. Hockey is a weird sport. Bounces happen. Breaks happen. You sometimes never know just who is going to be standing tall at the end of the day. I'm just enjoying the ride. It's been fun. Hopefully the Wings can continue the trend this evening against the Canes.
The Expected Lineups (based off last night's 3rd period)
Forwards
| Tomas Jurco | Henrik Zetterberg | Gustav Nyquist |
| Tomas Tatar | Pavel Datsyuk | Darren Helm |
| Johan Franzen | Riley Sheahan | Stephen Weiss |
| Joakim Andersson | Luke Glendening | Drew Miller |
Defensemen
| Niklas Kronwall | Jonathan Ericsson |
| Kyle Quincey | Danny DeKeyser |
| Brendan Smith | Jakub Kindl |
Goaltenders
| Petr Mrazek (starting) |
| Jimmy Howard |
Scratches: Brian Lashoff & Daniel Cleary
Injuries: Justin Abdelkader (shoulder) & Jonas Gustavsson (shoulder)
Forwards
| Nathan Gerbe | Eric Staal | Elias Lindholm |
| Jiri Tlusty | Riley Nash | Alexander Semin |
| Jeff Skinner | Victor Rask | Andrej Nestrasil |
| Zach Boychuk | Jay McClement | Pat Dwyer |
Defensemen
| Justin Faulk | Tim Gleason |
| Ron Hainsey | Michal Jordan |
| John-Michael Liles | Jay Harrison |
Goaltenders
| Cam Ward (starting) |
| Anton Khudobin |
| HURRICANES | THE MATCH-UP | RED WINGS |
| 8-14-3 (19 pts; 10th in East WC) | Record | 16-6-5 (37 pts; 2nd in Atlantic) |
| 2.28 (26th in NHL) | Goals Per Game | 3.11 (4th in NHL) |
| 2.76 (20th) | Goals Against Per Game | 2.44 (9th) |
| 21.5% (9th) | Power Play % | 22.4% (7th) |
| 83.8% (10th) | Penalty Kill % | 86.6% (3rd) |
| Jiri Tlusty (10 goals) | Goal Leader | Gustav Nyquist (12 goals) |
| Eric Staal (15 points) | Points Leader | Henrik Zetterberg (24 points) |
- The Red Wings are 35-27-8-0 (W-L-T-OTL) all-time in the regular season against the Carolina Hurricanes.
- Last 10 Games: Carolina 3-7-0, Detroit 8-2-0
- The Red Wings are 1-0-1 on the second night of a back-to-back.
- Is it me or do the Hurricanes seem to have to wrong version of certain players? The wrong Nash. The wrong Rask. The wrong Boychuk. That's not a shot at those players that they do have. They're in the NHL and I'm not, but I'd sure as hell rather have Rick, Tuukka and Johnny instead of Riley, Victor and Zach.
- This will be the first time the Red Wings will face Andrej Nestrasil since losing him on waivers. Expect him to score a goal. It will also be the first time the Wings face former assistant coach and current Carolina head coach Bill Peters. It's less likely he'll score a goal.
- This could be the 2nd straight game where the Wings face a goalie named Cam. They're 1-0-0 so far against goalies named Cam.
- Mrazek is 2-0-0 with a 3.36 GAA and .875 SV% in 2 starts this season. He's never faced the Canes./