7:00p ET, Nationwide Arena
Columbus, OH
TV: Fox Sports Detroit
Radio: 97.1 The Ticket/1270 AM
Jacket’s Blog: The Cannon
Just win, baby.
If ever there was a motto that the Red Wings needed to adopt as their mantra, that’s it. The Wings are mired in a two-game losing streak and are sporting a pretty gross 2-5-0 record in the month of March. This includes a pretty devastating loss to the Flyers on Tuesday night, who have passed the Wings in the standings thanks to their win against the worthless Blackhawks last night.
So that’s the situation. The Wings are officially out of a playoff spot, and now we get to see whether all the talk about understanding their predicament and knowing what they need to do to get back to the playoffs and extend the streak is just talk.
Because the last several games have seen the Wings fail to start on time, a disturbing trend that has cost them valuable points. And the Wings are now at a time where every single point matters more than it did before, which really isn’t true because if the Wings earned more points in November, December and January they wouldn’t be in the position they are now.
Whatever, the fact is the Wings have an opportunity to get back in to the coveted 2nd Wild Card spot with a win over a Blue Jackets team that thoroughly embarrassed them a little over a week ago. It may have been the Wings’ worst performance of the season, and the desire to exact revenge plus knowing that they no longer control their playoff destiny should hopefully be the wake up call they need to get their heads out of their asses and play better.
Because I don’t want to think about how we’ll all feel if they lose again.
The Wings were off on Wednesday, so we have no idea if there will be any changes to the lineup from Tuesday night. John Tortorella went all Dr Frankenstein on his lines so the below combinations are as good a guess as any. Check back for updates as the day progresses.
Possible 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 |
| Jimmy Howard |
Scratches: Teemu Pulkkinen, Tomas Jurco
Injuries: Drew Miller, Johan Franzen, Niklas Kronwall
Columbus Expected Lineup
Forwards
| Jared Boll | Alexander Wennberg | Brandon Dubinsky |
| Brandon Saad | Boone Jenner | Cam Atkinson |
| Scott Hartnell | William Karlsson | Nick Foligno |
| Matt Calvert | Gregory Campbell | Rene Bourque |
Defensemen
| Ryan Murray | John Ramage |
| Cody Goloubef | David Savard |
| Fedor Tyutin | Seth Jones |
Goaltenders
| Joonas Korpisalo |
| Curtis McElhinney |
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Game Day Prediction Contest
Would you like to predict the outcome of the game and potentially become internet famous? Well you’re in luck, because here’s your opportunity. Here’s how it works.
Make your game predictions on the winning team, final score, and who the Wings player of the game will be. Enter the required information into the form below using the formats indicated in the questions. If you don’t use those formats, your answers will be disregarded. All submissions are timestamped and will be accepted only until the official game start time. All other submissions after that will be disregarded. Only one submission per person, please. POTG will be determined by the collective of WiiM writers.
Each correct winning team prediction is worth 1 point. Each correct player of the game prediction is worth 2 points. Each correct final score prediction is worth 5 points. If you get all three correct you’ll receive 15 points.
