That’s right, kiddies. We’ve got an honest-to-goodness real new hockey game between the Red Wings and a team that’s not the Red Wings. Sure, it’s preseason, but it’s exciting. If you’re lucky enough to get NHL Network, you’ll be able to watch tonight’s preseason match up against the Penguins tonight at 7.
Detroit will go with the Red Team for the matchup, so the lines will look something like this:
Hudler-Datsyuk-Cleary
Brunnstrom-Emmerton-Eaves
Miller-Johnson-Mursak
Tatar-Conner-Holmstrom
Kronwall-Brad Stuart
Smith-Commodore
Exelby-Pyett
Howard
MacDonald
There are no real keys to victory for the game, because it’s just preseason. Score more than the Penguins. Watch out for cheap shots from last year’s most-penalized team. Make the adjustment to Datsyuk wearing #24.
Morning links after the jump.
Red Wings NewsRed Wing Todd Bertuzzi embraces new role on ‘two kids and a goat’ line | Detroit Free Press | freep.com
Bert’s growing a ponytail as a bonding thing with his 10-year old son, Tag. It keeps getting harder and harder to make jokes about him turning puppies into soup. Also, he’s got a good attitude about moving to a checking line with Helm and Abdelkader. I’ve always thought Bert and Helm had good chemistry.
Lineups for Red Wings’ first two preseason games | MLive.com
Just in case you haven’t seen the lineups yet, here they are again.
Passing of time works in Steve Moore’s favour – The Globe and Mail
Dowbiggin goes out of his way to pat the hockey media on the back for saving hockey from itself sufficiently so Moore could get a bigger payday. What hurts the most about this article is that he’s right about a lot of things.
Increasing the Workload ” The Production Line – TP:60
If you didn’t read this yesterday, un-screw your head from your butt and get on it. Good piece by Petrella on moving people up and down the lineup and how difficult it can be to adapt.
Elsewhere Around the League
Brendan Shanahan will stress player safety in new role – USATODAY.com
It’s really going to suck when a mistake by Batman destroys half of Shanahan’s face and turns him into a wild supervillain who makes all of his decisions based on random chance. Until then, I’m going to enjoy having a white knight at the helm of discipline while I can.
Winnipeg Jets’ Dustin Byfuglien charged with boating while intoxicated – ESPN
If I may jump into the realm of wild and dangerous fan speculation here, I just want to point out that there is no drug testing of NHL players in the offseason and Byfuglien is in trouble for turning down the type of test which could jeopardize the career of a player if it came back positive for banned substances. It’s either that or he really did just get bad advice about his rights to refuse a test. The simpler answer does tend to be the correct one.
Should the NHL blow up its conference format for realignment? – Puck Daddy – NHL Blog – Yahoo! Sports
More division realignment talk. There’s a reference in there about an eight-team tournament that you can completely ignore though. No way they cut the number of playoff teams in half. The playoffs are too big of a money-maker (even with revenue sharing) for owners to agree to that.
The NHL’s Most Interesting Name: 1940s Part I – Arctic Ice Hockey
I keep waiting for the day I’ll get tired of these and it keeps not coming. I’m getting a lot of good ideas here for Baby #2 FromKans
FTF Interviews Sharks General Manager Doug Wilson: Part One – Fear The Fin
FTF Interviews Sharks General Manager Doug Wilson: Part Two – Fear The Fin
Two of the three in a series with FTF interviewing Sharks GM Doug Wilson. Some excellent questions here and insight to the mind of one of the better GMs in the league. Looking forward to part three.
Sleektooned Blog Logos 5: Sunday evening edition! – Battle of California
More Sleektooned logos in one of my other favorite summer series. Admittedly, the one for Habs Eyes on the Prize gives me nightmares.
Game Thread tonight. Wear your Wednesday best.
