8p ET, MTS Centre
Winnipeg, MB
TV: Fox Sports Detroit
Radio: 97.1 The Ticket/1270 AM
Winnipeg Blog: Arctic Ice Hockey
Well last night’s loss was a huge pile of crap. I think J.J. said it best on the WIIM twitter feed when he called it the Red Wings “most-complete loss of December.” It was just ugly. At no point when I watched the game did I feel like the Wings were going to pull it out. Maaaaaaaybe a few times after Petr Mrazek came up with a huge save. Could they steal a point or two? Nope. If it wasn’t for the goaltender, it might’ve been a hell of a lot worse.
The good news is the Red Wings have a chance to bounce back immediately and correct all the wrongs from last night. Things could look a little different too.
#RedWings Jeff Blashill upset with team’s performance. Said he’ll evaluate for possible lineup change, so maybe Tangradi plays in Winnipeg.
— Ansar Khan (@AnsarKhanMLive) December 29, 2015
Not sure what will exactly change. If Eric Tangradi gets a shot, who do you take out? The initial answer is Joakim Andersson, but he and the 4th line weren’t terrible last night. You’re probably not taking out Riley Sheahan or anyone else on the top 9 alongside him. I’d probably sit Andersson and see what a 4th line of Tangradi-Tomas Nosek–Tomas Jurco looks like. Who knows? Maybe shake up the other 3 lines? Maybe Luke Glendening is over his illness? We’ll make sure to update this afternoon with any news if the Wings have a morning skate.
Detroit’s Expected Lineup
Forwards
| Justin Abdelkader | Henrik Zetterberg | Dylan Larkin |
| Brad Richards | Pavel Dastyuk | Darren Helm |
| Gus Nyquist | Riley Sheahan | Tomas Tatar |
| Joakim Andersson | Tomas Nosek | Tomas Jurco |
Defensemen
| Niklas Kronwall | Danny DeKeyser |
| Brendan Smith | Mike Green |
| Jakub Kindl | Alexey Marchenko |
Goaltenders
| Jimmy Howard |
| Petr Mrazek |
Scratches: Eric Tangradi, Luke Gledending (ill)
Injuries: Kyle Quincey, Johan Franzen, Teemu Pulkkinen, Drew Miller, Jonathan Ericsson
Winnipeg’s Expected Lineup
Forwards
| Drew Stafford | Bryan Little | Blake Wheeler |
| Andrew Ladd | Adam Lowry | Alex Burmistrov |
| Nikolaj Ehlers | Mathieu Perreault | Chris Thorburn |
| Matt Halischuk | Andrew Copp | Joel Armia |
Defensemen
| Jacob Trouba | Dustin Byfuglien |
| Tobias Enstrom | Tyler Myers |
| Mark Stuart | Ben Chiarot |
Goaltenders
| Connor Hellebuyck |
| Michael Hutchinson |
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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.
