Updates
So far, the only updates we have are practice lines from yesterday. It appears likely we’ll see the same lines as last game.
#RedWings lines, D pairs at practice same as last night’s game:
Bertuzzi-Larkin-Mantha
Athanasiou-Filppula-Fabbri
Perlini-Nielsen-Erne
Helm-Ehn-Abdelkader
Hirose extra. Glendening (hand) practicing in orange non-contact jersey.
Nemeth-Hronek
Cholowski-McIlrath
Bowey-Green
Biega pic.twitter.com/nthFdrNLtM— Ansar Khan (@AnsarKhanMLive) November 9, 2019
#RedWings power-play units heading into tomorrow’s game vs. @GoldenKnights same as last night’s game:
1. Bertuzzi (net front), Larkin (slot), Fabbri-Mantha (half walls), Cholowski (point).
2. Perlini (net front), Filppula (slot), Hronek-Athanasiou (half walls), Green (point).— Ansar Khan (@AnsarKhanMLive) November 9, 2019
Guessing that Bernier will start, but nothing has been announced yet.
Lineups
DETROIT
Tyler Bertuzzi – Dylan Larkin – Anthony Mantha
Andreas Athanasiou – Valtteri FIlppula – Robby Fabbri
Brendan Perlini – Frans Nielsen – Adam Erne
Darren Helm – Christoffer Ehn – Justin Abdelkader
Patrik Nemeth – Filip Hronek
Dennis Cholowski – Dylan McIlRath
Madison Bowey – Mike Green
Jonathan Bernier
Jimmy Howard
VEGAS
Jonathan Marchessault – William Karlsson – Reilly Smith
Max Pacioretty – Paul Stastny – Mark Stone
Tomas Nosek – Cody Eakin – Cody Glass
Will Carrier – Nicolas Roy – Ryan Reaves
Brayden McNabb – Nate Schmidt
Shea Theodore – Deryk Engelland
Jon Merrill – Nick Holden
Malcolm Subban
Marc-Andre Fleury
Keys to the Game
Start Fast
This is a Red Wings team suddenly flushed with fast paced players. They need to take advantage of that most nights but tonight especially. Vegas is coming in on the back end of a back to back and rely on pace control. If the Red Wings can set the tempo high early on and push the pace they could draw Vegas out but more importantly they could tire them out. This could at least limit the amount of fight Vegas has going into the third period and allow the Wings more room to work offensively.
Keep the Game 5 on 5
Normally I have something talking about how the Red Wings need to take advantage of their chances on the PP because they are just not a very good offensive 5 on 5 team right now. The problem here is that Vegas has the second best penalty kill in the league. Conversely while the Knights are not great with the man advantage themselves (11th in the NHL) the Red Wings PK is abysmal, ranked dead last at an almost unheard of 67.2%. By keeping it to 5 on 5 Detroit can potentially play with that pace without losing momentum from their less than special teams and frankly they stand a better chance of limiting Vegas on the score sheet by not letting them feast on an extremely weak Red Wings PK.
Continue to Look for and Build an Identity
Let’s face it, the Wings could play a very good game tonight and still lose. Beyond the “any team can beat…” mantra, this is a rebuilding team struggling to find their identity and way right now. That is the real measure of success right now. Winning games is nice but they need to start figuring out what their team identity is and learning how to compete and win hockey games that way. Hopefully they found some of that last game and can find ways to bring their play from Friday into today and beyond.
