Morning Skate: Red Wings vs Sabres
5:00p ET, First Niagara Center
Buffalo, NY
TV: Fox Sports Detroit
Radio: 97.1 The Ticket
Sabres Blogs: Die By The Blade
The Los Angeles Kings had themselves a spooky-ass Halloween. Why? Because the Red Wings scored four goals in the first period. Can the red shirts do it again? Well, if you could predict it to happen against any team, it would be these Sabres. It's obvious, they're not the best team.. But they DID pull off a win against San Jose already this season. It's an early start, so I'm somewhat expecting to see a vintage Detroit Red Wings 5pm puck-drop first period. You know, where it just looks like they're still in a coma from eating all them hella good buffalo wings from Duff's?
Not worried. The Mule is back, and is hungry for goals (and buffalo wings.) Nesty is out, Lashoff is in (ugh), and I might start to miss Kyle Quincey soon.
The Expected Lineups
Forwards
| Pavel Datsyuk | Henrik Zetterberg | Justin Abdelkader |
| Gustav Nyquist | Darren Helm | Johan Franzen |
| Tomas Tatar | Riley Sheahan | Tomas Jurco |
| Joakim Andersson | Luke Glendening | Drew Miller |
Defensemen
| Niklas Kronwall | Jonathan Ericsson |
| Danny DeKeyser | Brendan Smith |
| Jakub Kindl | Brian Lashoff |
Goaltenders
| Jimmy Howard (starting) |
| Jonas Gustavsson |
Scratches: Daniel Cleary & Andrej Nestrasil
Injuries: Stephen Weiss (do i even need to elaborate at this point), Kyle Quincey (ankle)
Forwards
| Matt Moulson | Tyler Ennis | Drew Stafford |
| Marcus Foligno | Cody Hodgson | Chris Stewart |
| Torrey Mitchell | Zemgus Girgensons | Brian Gionta |
| Nicolas Deslauriers | Cody McCormick | Brian Flynn |
Defensemen
| Josh Gorges | Tyler Myers |
| Andre Benoit | Rasmus Ristolainen |
| Mike Weber | Tyson Strachan |
Goaltenders
| Jhonas Enroth (starting) |
| Michal Neuvirth |
Bullets of Knowledge
- The Red Wings are 54-53-13 (W-L-OTL) all-time in the regular season against the Buffalo Sabres.
- Pavel Datsyuk has 16 points in 16 games all-time against the Sabres.
- Jimmy Howard's Career Stat-Line at First Niagara: 2-0-0 with a 1.63 GAA and .943 SV%/