Detroit and Pittsburgh face off for the 17th time since the start of the first match-up in the Stanley Cup.
- In those 16 previous games, the Red Wings are 8-6-2 against the Penguins. The amount of games these two teams have played is pretty incredible considering they’re in different Conferences.
- IMPORTANT! Tonight is the last night of the H2H donations going on over at The Production Line so jump on over there and make a donation for the kiddies. It’s for a good cause and always fun to make Petrella do math.
- Jimmy Howard will start again. Tiberius was pretty good in net for the Wings against Vancouver. Sure, he gave up 3 goals but they were a difficult three goals to stop. Two were complete screens and/or deflections and then a high puck that one of the Sedin twins corralled right on the doorstop before barely getting his stick on it and putting it in.
- The Tiberius start, will be his 19th straight start. In recent games, Howard is 4-0-1 in his last five.
- Bad news on the injury front (sounds familiar huh?) as Dan Cleary and Patrick Eaves are both listed as out for tonight’s game. To make it worse, Brad Stuart is listed as questionable. If Stuart can’t go the Wings will be forced to use only 17 players on the ice. Expect all three of the odd-man out trio (Ericsson, Lebda, Meech) to play tonight. Lebda dressed last game but saw as much ice time as I did. If Stuart is out, expect him to get time.
- Calgary lost last night to Minnesota 4-3 in regulation. That leaves Detroit 2 points ahead of Calgary for 8th place. Thanks, Pinky.
- Pittsburgh’s leading scorer is Sidney Crosby with 45 goals. For a guy that no one really ever classifies as a goal scorer, he’s becoming a game breaker in that department.
- Side note: Congrats to Teemu Selanne for scoring his 600th career goal. No easy achievement.
- Drink for every time Versus mentions Crosby and the Olympic Gold Medal game. Have an ambulance on standby.
- Marc-Andre Fleury has struggled at times this year and the Red Wings will need him to struggle a bit more as the Penguins are pretty solid defensively and have a lot of forwards that are good at playing defense too. Detroit peppered Luongo in Vancouver and should look to do the same tonight.
