Morning Skate: Red Wings at Lightning
8p ET, Amalie Arena
Tampa, FL
TV: NBCSN
Radio: 97.1 The Ticket/1270 AM
Lightning Blog: Raw Charge
Welcome back, Red Wings hockey. We missed you.
Now, as excited as I am about the return of the Wings, the honeymoon ended pretty quickly thanks to the lines from practice yesterday. The reasoning behind the awful lineup is Riley Sheahan's illness. He's questionable for tonight. Let's hope he plays and Luke Glendening doesn't get the opportunity to drag down Tomas Tatar and Gus Nyquist. Also, Jeff Blashill could just move Brad Richards or Darren Helm or Dylan Larkin to the 3rd line center spot. Move up Tomas Jurco or Teemu Pulkkinen and put Glendening in his proper role. But hey! What the hell do I know!?
Regardless of who ends up in the lineup, it's a crucial week for the Wings. Back-to-back games on the road against two of the teams they're chasing in the standings. The Islanders come to the Joe this weekend and the Panthers make a visit early next week. We could very easily look back on this week of hockey and point to it as the rise or downfall of the Wings season. Points are super crucial. One good week or one poor week can make all the difference.
Detroit Expected Lineup
Forwards
| Justin Abdelkader | Henrik Zetterberg | Dylan Larkin |
| Darren Helm | Pavel Dastyuk | Brad Richards |
| Gus Nyquist | Luke Glendening | Tomas Tatar |
| Tomas Jurco | Joakim Andersson | Teemu Pulkkinen |
Defensemen
| Kyle Quincey | Danny DeKeyser |
| Brendan Smith | Mike Green |
| Jonathan Ericsson | Alexey Marchenko |
Goaltenders
| Petr Mrazek |
| Jimmy Howard |
Scratches: Riley Sheahan (illness, maybe)
Injuries: Drew Miller, Johan Franzen, Niklas Kronwall
Tampa Expected Lineup
Forwards
| Ondrej Palat | Vladislav Namestnikov | Steven Stamkos |
| Alex Killorn | Tyler Johnson | Nikita Kucherov |
| J.T. Brown | Valtteri Filppula | Ryan Callahan |
| Cedric Paquette | Brian Boyle | Jonathan Marchessault |
Defensemen
| Victor Hedman | Anton Stralman |
| Jason Garrison | Andrej Sustr |
| Nikita Nesterov | Braydon Coburn |
Goaltenders
| Ben Bishop |
| Andrei Vasilevskiy |
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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.