[cough]
Hearing Andreas Athanasiou out tonight because of illness. David Booth subbing in. #DETvsTBL
— Helene St. James (@HeleneStJames) February 15, 2018
Not sure who’s out on “D” for #TBLightning, but Dotchin didn’t help himself Tuesday in Buffalo. Bad penalty in third which Cooper brought up
— Joe Smith (@TBTimes_JSmith) February 15, 2018
Vasilevskiy first off ice. Will start for #TBLightning
— Joe Smith (@TBTimes_JSmith) February 15, 2018
Projected Lineups
Red Wings
Anthony Mantha – Henrik Zetterberg – Gustav Nyquist
Tomas Tatar- Dylan Larkin – Tyler Bertuzzi
Darren Helm – Frans Nielsen – Justin Abdelkader
David Booth – Luke Glendening – Martin Frk
Jonathan Ericsson – Trevor Daley
Niklas Kronwall – Mike Green
Danny DeKeyser – Nick Jensen
Jimmy Howard
Petr Mrazek
Lightning
Yanni Gourde – Steven Stamkos – Tyler Johnson
Alex Killorn – Brayden Point – Nikita Kucherov
Adam Erne – Vladislav Namestnikov – Cory Conacher
Chris Kunitz – Matthew Peca – Ryan Callahan
Victor Hedman – Anton Stralman
Mikhail Sergachev – Dan Girardi
Braydon Coburn – Andrej Sustr
Andrei Vasilevskiy
Louis Domingue
Keys to the Game
[Insert Young Player Name Here] needs more heart, hustle and GRIT [lozenges]
Did you notice in the 3rd period last game AA was only on the ice for one shift? Blash didn’t say AA had a bad attitude or was being lazy, he just said it wasn’t AA’s night and, “I was going with the guys I thought were going.” He plans to have AA back in as usual tonight, but if he doesn’t dazzle in the first 40 minutes, who knows. AA is definitely overdue for heroics.
Greek Lightning > Tampa Bay Lightning
Anyone can make it look easy, but we make it look impossibly difficult
[Ed note: damnit]
Magic pill for the penalty kill
The penalty kill feels like it’s been terrible forever, but we’re actually sitting middle of the pack compared to everyone else. The good news is, the Lightning aren’t much better than we are at killing penalties, the bad news is we don’t tend to have the even strength offense to make up for our whoopsies.
If I were Blashill I would say I have every faith in my assistant coaches and that all the penalty kill units need to do is want to do a good job and then they will get their confidence back.
I am not Blashill, so I will just say FIX YOUR BUSINESS.
Parent Trap
It’s the Father’s trip so the Red Wings dads are tagging along on to Tampa and then Nashville. Impossibly, Zetterberg’s disappointed Dad Glare(TM) doesn’t seem to be powerful enough, but perhaps the full power of the Red Wings Dads will right the ship if things go wrong.
