The question on everybody’s mind this morning is which A-list scrabble name would be sitting tonight between Abdelkader and Athanasiou, and it seems the prime alphabetical still isn’t feeling well enough to go. Abby skated sparingly with the fourth line today and Helene confirmed he’s out, so we’ll see the same lineup as against the Sharks.
Red Wings Lines
Forwards
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Dylan Larkin |
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Henrik Zetterberg |
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Tomas Vanek |
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Defense
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Danny DeKesyer |
Mike Green |
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Brendan Smith |
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Jonathan Ericsson |
Goalies
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Petr Mrazek (Starting) |
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Jimmy Howard |
On the Hurricanes’ side, it looks like Jeff Skinner isn’t going to go tonight after not taking part in the morning skate. It also looks like Bill Peters has a sense of humor in putting the two waiver-losses on the fourth line together. That should be a fun matchup for the OMG line.
Hurricanes
Forwards
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Viktor Stalberg |
Viktor Rask |
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Phil Di Giuseppe |
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Andrej Nestrasil |
Martin Frk |
Defense
|
Jaccob Slavin |
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Ron Hainsey |
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Jakub Nakladal |
Goalies
Key matchups
Homeboys vs. Road Warriors
This marks the end of the Hurricanes’ season-opening road trip, as they’re the only team in the NHL who has yet to have their home opener. Detroit has been resting comfortably at home since Thursday. I’m sure we’ll be able to fit what all of that means into a postgame narrative about one team not starting the game on time or finishing badly. I just think it’s really interesting that the Canes have yet to play at home by now.
The Possession Battle
The Canes are once again a team that carries play. Their problem has remained constant in that preventing goals has been an issue. Carolina skated all over Detroit in every matchup they played last year as Bill Peters’ style of aggressively pushing play to the middle of the ice gave last year’s low-event Wings fits. Will Blashill’s adjustments this season better match up against Carolina’s speed?
Carolina’s Power Play vs. Detroit’s Penalty Kill
The Canes boast the fourth-best PP% in the league through their six games getting about four opportunities per game so far and scoring on one of those. The Wings’ PK so far rounds out to giving the opposition four opportunities on the PP per game and letting them score on one of those. I’m no mathemagician, but it seems that on average, the Red Wings are going to give up a special teams goal in this game unless they do better.
Puck drop is at 7:30 tonight. Gamethread goes live at 7. Stick around, won’t you?
