Back at it tonight after half the Wings lost to half the Bruins in the TD Garden yesterday by a 4-2 score.
The Matchup: Detroit Red Wings at Pittsburgh Penguins
The Location: PPG Paints Arena (Pittsburgh, PA)
The Time: 7:00pm ET
The Enemy: Pensburgh
The Broadcast: Pittsburgh radio The X 105.9 / Streamed live from the Penguins’ website, but local only.
The Enemy Roster: The Penguins’ website has the roster listed here. The standouts on this are kind of thin, including Tom Kuhnhackl, Conor Sheary, Jake Guentzel, Ryan Reaves, Justin Schultz, Brian Dumoulin, Ian Cole, and Matt Murray (who will start the first two and then give up the net to Tristan Jarry).
The Wings
Jimmy Howard will get the start backed up by Thomas McCollum. Here are line/pairing combos from the diggers:
#RedWings lines:
Tatar-Street-Nyquist
Svechnikov-Nielsen-Helm
Campbell-Elkins-Sadowy
Booth-Holmstrom-Lorito
Esposito— Dana Wakiji (@Dwakiji) September 20, 2017
#RedWings likely defense pairs tonight:
DeKeyser-Daley
Renouf-Ouellet
Hicketts-Russo— Ansar Khan (@AnsarKhanMLive) September 20, 2017
First thing’s first – Trevor Daley playing his first Red Wings game of any kind in Pittsburgh against the team with whom he won the cup is kind of cool. It’s also interesting to see Ben Street as the stand-in for Henrik Zetterberg, but should be a good indication that the wingers need to carry that top line. Svechnikov being with Nielsen and Helm gives me hope that the frustration I’ve seen out of pretty decent play so far this season from him will abate with more NHL-caliber linemates. The other two lines? Eh, I’m looking for Sadowy and Holmstrom, but mostly I’ll be watching for them to take up time waiting on the first two lines to come back out.
Defensively, we’re looking at what very well could be used as Detroit’s top pairing, followed by a Griffin paired with the Wings’ current 7th and then two full-time Griffins. Not that I agree with Ouellet being Detroit’s 7th, but that’s what the diggers seem to think for him right now.
In terms of the matchup, this should be a better game for Detroit. You always tell yourself that you don’t care about losing in the preseason (much like you shouldn’t get too hyped for wins), but the way these two lineups match up, the Wings should have a more-competitive showing than the Krejci/Pastrnak show that mostly rolled them last night.
We’ll use this post for a gamethread again tonight for those watching/listening. As a reminder, please do not share information on illegal streams (please stick to the rivers and the lakes that you’re used to).
