Updates

#RedWings on ice for morning skate prior to facing @NYIslanders at @LCArena_Detroit Bernier starting. Newly acquired goalie Eric Comrie, wearing No. 34, will back-up. pic.twitter.com/3itvrsmzq0

— Ansar Khan (@AnsarKhanMLive) December 2, 2019

#RedWings power play units:
1. Bertuzzi (net front), Larkin (slot), Fabbri-Zadina (half walls), Cholowski (point).
2. Perlini (net front), Filppula (slot) Hronek-Athanasiou (half walls), Green (point).

— Ansar Khan (@AnsarKhanMLive) December 2, 2019

Lineups

Red Wings

Tyler Bertuzzi - Dylan Larkin - Luke Glendening
Andreas Athanasiou - Valtteri Filppula - Robby Fabbri
Darren Helm - Frans Nielsen - Filip Zadina
Adam Erne - Christoffer Ehn - Brendan Perlini

Patrik Nemeth - Filip Hronek
Dennis Cholowski - Mike Green
Alex Biega - Dylan McIlrath

Jonathan Bernier
Eric Comrie

Islanders

Anders Lee - Mathew Barzal - Josh Bailey
Anthony Beauvillier - Brock Nelson - Jordan Eberle
Leo Komarov - Otto Koivula - Derick Brassard
Matt Martin - Casey Cizikas - Cal Clutterbuck

Adam Pelech - Ryan Pulock
Nick Leddy - Johnny Boychuk
Devon Toews - Scott Mayfield

Semyon Varlamov
Thomas Greiss

Keys to the Game

Avoid special teams
This isn’t really a matter of the Islanders having a spectacular power play, nor an impenetrable penalty kill that would render any Red Wings’ man advantage a fruitless two minutes. Unfortunately, the Wings do pretty well at that by themselves. No, this is more a plea to stay out of the box and avoid giving the Islanders, an average-scoring team, more chances to score. Now if we could just decline the power play like in football...

Take back home advantage
The Islanders are 11-2-1 at home and 6-3-1 on the road, while the Red Wings are 3-10-2 on the road and 4-9-1 at Little Caeasar’s Arena. These are obviously very slight and inconsequential differences in home and road records for each team, but I’m gonna be honest, I’m grasping at straws here. We’re getting to the point where the team’s official Keys to the Game look like this:

Back to basics. #DETvsPHI #LGRW pic.twitter.com/x0rgP2RRGj

— Detroit Red Wings (@DetroitRedWings) November 29, 2019

Capture a leprechaun
I said I was running out of ideas, didn’t I? Fellow writer Prashanth did some stats digging and found that the Wings are, and I quote, “on track to be the unluckiest team by expected goals in the modern stats era.” Ouch. So break out all your superstitions, Red Wings, wear your pajamas inside out and backwards, flush ice cubes down the toilet, and put spoons under your pillows. Oh wait, those were my childhood ones for snow days. At this point, they’re better off finding an actual mythical creature. Maybe a unicorn, I’m sure Sara has a few extras around somewhere.