Time: 12:30 pm ET
Place: PPG Paints Arena
TV: NBC, SN
Radio: 97.1 FM The Ticket, 1270 AM
Penguins blog: Pensburgh

Detroit has continued to find new ways to lose. After collapsing in the third period against New Jersey, the Wings decided yesterday to go back to what’s worked for them this season: collapsing in the second period.

The game is on NBC again, for some reason. I, for one, am definitely looking forward to the combination of Crosby and Malkin feasting on this defense and having to listen to Mike Milbury during the intermission. I guess maybe this is the monkey’s paw outcome of fans complaining Detroit isn’t on national TV as much as they think they should be. If the doorbell rings during the game, definitely don’t answer it.

Pittsburgh is coming off a 4-1 victory over Montreal, with newly acquired Jason Zucker scoring two goals on Crosby’s wing. Since coming back from injury, Crosby has 17 points in 11 games. Yeah, this could really get ugly.

Of course Detroit has sometimes beat teams they have no business beating, so maybe all of the above gets thrown out the window and we have a fun game.

Key to the Game: Scoring the first goal is good. Pretty...pretty...pretty good.

Let’s get away from having the rest of the game feel like it’s an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm and we are Larry David.

Projected Lineups

Red Wings

Forwards

Darren Helm — Dylan Larkin — Anthony Mantha
Tyler Bertuzzi — Andreas Athanasiou — Luke Glendening
Frans Nielsen — Valtteri Filppula — Robby Fabbri
Justin Abdelkader — Christoffer Ehn — Adam Erne

Defense

Filip Hronek — Mike Green
Patrik Nemeth — Gustav Lindstrom
Jonathan Ericsson — Alex Biega

* Trevor Daley left Saturday’s game. Since Ericsson is still with the team, and the Griffins play Saturday night, I’m making an educated guess that Ericsson draws in if Daley is out.

Goalies

Jonathan Bernier
Jimmy Howard

Penguins

Forwards

Jason Zucker - Sidney Crosby - Dominik Simon
Jared McCann - Evgeny Malkin - Bryan Rust
Zach Aston-Reese - Teddy Bleuger - Brandon Tanev
Sam Lafferty - Andrew Agozzino - Partric Hornqvist

Defense

Jack Johnson - Kris Letang
Marcus Pettersson - Justin Schultz
Juuso Riikola - Chad Ruhwedel

Goalies

Matt Murray
Tristan Jarry