IT’S MANTHA MANIA!
On a quick note, Blashill told the diggers that Darren Helm’s status for tonight will be decided at gametime. Helm missed Sunday’s game with the flu, but he did participate in today’s morning skate. If Helm isn’t good to go, then the prevailing guess is that Tomas Jurco will find himself in the lineup.
In other interesting roster news:
Plan is to keep Mantha for now long term..
— Ted Kulfan (@tkulfan) March 15, 2016
Well that’s a real good look for the Wings to start Mantha getting acclimated to the Wings (especially considering his linemates). Since Mantha isn’t slide-eligible, the only thing this will do is get him closer to waiver-eligibility. The hope here of course is that Mantha will make that an unnecessary consideration.
Blashill says Wings have reconsidered, won’t bring up spare defenseman unless needed for rest of trip.
— Helene St. James (@HeleneStJames) March 15, 2016
Kind of an interesting move, but the Wings have six defensemen they want to play, so using one of their three remaining call-ups on a kid from Grand Rapids to sit would be a bit wasteful to begin, so it makes sense that they would just chance things. If something happens in Philly tonight, it’s not hard to get a call-up into Columbus on time for Thursday’s game, and the Wings have two days off in Florida between the Panthers and Lightning games as well. The Griffins will be in Texas for the next week to play the Stars and Rampage, but fortunately jet airplanes are pretty good at going long distances quickly.
Line Combinations
Forwards
| Justin Abdelkader | Henrik Zetterberg | Dylan Larkin |
| Tomas Tatar | Pavel Datsyuk | Anthony Mantha |
| Gustav Nyquist | Riley Sheahan | Andreas Athanasiou |
| Darren Helm | Luke Glendening | Brad Richards |
Defensemen
| Danny DeKeyser | Kyle Quincey |
| Brendan Smith | Mike Green |
| Jonathan Ericsson | Alexey Marchenko |
Goaltenders
| Petr Mrazek (starting) |
| Jimmy Howard |
Power Play units:
- Nyquist-Zetterberg-Larkin, Abdelkader (net front), DeKeyser
- Tatar-Datsyuk-Mantha (net front), Richards, Green
Flyers Line Combinations
Forwards
| Brayden Schenn | Claude Giroux | Wayne Simmonds |
| Michael Raffl | Sean Couturier | Sam Ganger |
| Scott Laughton | Nick Cousins | Matt Read |
| Chris VandeVelde | Pierre-Edouard Bellemare | Ryan White |
Defensemen
| Nick Schultz | Mark Streit |
| Andrew MacDonald | Shayne Gostisbehere |
| Brandon Manning | Radko Gudas |
Goaltenders
| Steve Mason (starting) |
| Anthony Stolarz |
Key Matchups:
Gostibehere versus Smith
The Philly defenseman has more goals by himself than any of the three pairs for the Red Wings will have combined tonight. Detroit has an offensive defenseman who has just as many goals as Jonathan Ericsson. If this one sounds like a real bad mismatch then that’s only because it is. I don’t care. I’m going to say if Smith outperforms Gostisbehere, Detroit will win.
Mantha vs Fan Expectations
Is there any way people are ok with Mantha tonight if he doesn’t score at least one goal? The kid is up in a hugely pressure-packed situation. If he succeeds tonight, people are going to write operas about his virility.
Fun Facts!
- Bears don’t have souls and are therefore incapable of becoming ghost-bears.
- Giroux is a French portmanteau for a sauce-thickening agent flavored with ginger. Claude Giroux’s name means fat ginger.
- Radko Gudas smells like an unkempt zoo.
