Time: 7:30 PM ET
Place: Little Caesars Arena
TV: FS-D, SUN
Radio: 97.1 FM The Ticket / 1270 AM
Bolts Blog: Raw Charge
The Wings head into their Thursday rematch against the powerhouse Tampa Bay Lightning for a game that I’m looking at with equal parts interest and dread. With a team that’s been as bad as Detroit for as long, you get few opportunities for what are really classifiable as “statement games”, but I think I’m going to throw the tag on this one and live with the consequences.
The Lightning are a better team and that showed on Tuesday. Detroit played what might have been their most-consistent game of the season and walked away having blown a lead and with yet another loss. The last time Detroit beat Tampa in regulation was November 2015.
If Tuesday was a case of the Lightning not taking Detroit seriously enough and seeing if they could get away with it, then that worked for them. Regardless of whether that’s the case, it shouldn’t be tonight. This is going to be a major test for the Wings to see if they can build on the momentum of having slapped the juggernaut in the face or whether they’ll be unable to keep up any consistency and will get buried.
No major lineup or injury updates have come down since Tuesday, so we’ll see what’s going on up front. I’m guessing Bernier will get tonight’s start, but we’ll have gameday updates later today after the teams have skated.
LGRW
