Updates

Happy Birthday, Joey! 🥳🙌 pic.twitter.com/Dh7jpGI75a

— Detroit Red Wings (@DetroitRedWings) December 21, 2019

Red Wings held optional morning skate at Scotiabank Arena, but Jonathan Bernier scheduled to start against Maple Leafs, and it looks like (as of now), Abdelkader, Ehn & Biega are the scratches.

— Helene St. James (@HeleneStJames) December 21, 2019

Tonight’s rosters for the winter solstice savants out there in this the shortest day of the year! pic.twitter.com/LAq895i9P2

— Ken Kal (@KenKalDRW) December 21, 2019

The @MapleLeafs have loaned forward Adam Brooks and defenceman Martin Marincin to the @TorontoMarlies. #LeafsForever

— Leafs PR (@LeafsPR) December 21, 2019

Jimmy Howard will practice today with Grand Rapids Griffins, then return to Detroit and plan is he'll start for Red Wings vs. Coyotes. Howard played 2 conditioning-stint games with Griffins.

— Helene St. James (@HeleneStJames) December 21, 2019

Red Wings Line Up

Mantha - Larkin - Zadina
Fabbri - Filpulla - Bertuzzi
Helm - Glendening - Athanasiou
Erne - Nielsen - Perlini

Nemeth - Green
Daley - Hronek
Lashoff - Bowey

Bernier
Pickard

Maple Leafs Line Up

Hyman - Tavares - Marner
Nylander - Matthews - Kapanen
Engvall - Kerfoot - Mikheyev
Timashov - Gauthier - Spezza

Rielly - Barrie
Muzzin - Holl
Dermott - Ceci

Hutchinson
Andersen

Three Keys to the Game

Shut down a line. The Leafs are pretty scary with the Tavares line and the Matthews line up front. The might mean shuffling lines a bit. Larkin, Bertuzzi, and Mantha did an excellent job outplaying Connor McDavid’s line earlier this season, but putting that trio back together means dropping Zadina to the second line, so if you really want to keep Zadina with Larkin and Mantha then you have some interesting decisions to make as a coach about how to handle the Leafs’ heavy firepower at the top of their lineup.

More Erne and Perlini. These two guys could really use a goal or two again, and the team could really use production from the bottom of the lineup. With secondary scoring being such an enigma for Detroit this season, getting some help from one of these two guys would be huge. I guess we’d take a goal from Nielsen, too.

Keep em’ to the outside. Like Detroit, Toronto is a pretty fast team and Detroit has been less than adequate at preventing the rush this season. There are going to be some breakaways against Bernier, some one-on-ones, or worse. It is going to be really important for the Detroit blue line to force Toronto’s weapons to the outside to take away their angles and giver Bernier the best chance to gobble up pucks.