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The Detroit Red Wings (4-2-0) returned from Beantown last night, winners of two straight games following some line juggling by coach
Mike Babcock and dealing with a minor injury to goaltender
Jimmy Howard.
In both contests, it did not go unnoticed that the offensive production of the "Eurotwins" once again led the way for the Winged Wheel. On Saturday night, the Wings
outplayed the Philadelphia Flyers in handing them a 5-2 defeat at the Joe Louis Arena to end a two-game losing streak. Detroit's best players produced on the scoresheet as Zetterberg, Datsyuk, Alfredsson and Kronwall each had three points on the evening. Most importantly, the team's power-play returned to form converting three of seven man advantage situations, following a 0-for-10 start for the power-play unit through the opening four contests of the season.
However, it was Monday afternoon's 3-2 victory in Boston against the Bruins just over a week after getting soundly beaten 4-1 in the same building, that should have the Red Wings walking with some extra spring in their step heading into their 4th contest in 6 nights this evening against the Columbus Bluejackets (2-2-0). A reminder that tonight's game has been moved to an 8:00 PM ET start (Fox Sports Detroit), with Game 3 of the ALCS between the Detroit Tigers and Boston Red Sox taking place at nearby Comerica Park.
The Red Wings were thrown a curve ball during the pre-game warm-ups when Howard, who had bruised his left catching hand during the Philadelphia contest, felt discomfort after catching three shots during warm-up. As a result,
Jonas Gustavsson made his season debut for the Wings and posted a very strong effort in making 28 saves for the win.
Gustavsson will make his home debut this evening for Detroit, with Howard expected to return to the crease on Thursday night in Colorado to face the undefeated (currently) Avalanche. At the other end of the goal from Gustavsson tonight,
Sergei Bobrovsky will get the start in net for Columbus.
The Red Wings came out well on Monday in Boston and Datsyuk and Zetterberg continued their offensive production from Saturday night vs. Philly by combining for this beautiful goal to open the scoring:
After Boston had tied it less than three minutes later on a deflection in front of "The Monster" by
Loui Ericksson, Boston appeared to be gaining control of the contest and holding a slight territorial advantage. However, midway through the 2nd period, the Wings responded with two goals in 2:20 to open up a 3-1 lead. Detroit finally got some secondary support to the top line and power-play when
Stephen Weiss scored his 2nd goal of the campaign, taking a nice feed from
Johan Franzen and beating
Tuukka Rask after
Justin Abdelkader had created space for Weiss by driving to the net and attracting a defender with him.
Shortly thereafter,
Daniel Cleary drove to the net and shoveled home a nice feed by
Daniel Alfredsson from behind the Boston goal to give Detroit a two-goal cushion. The Bruins continued to press but Gustavsson stood tall late in the 2nd period.
A critical juncture in the contest took place early in the 3rd period when the Bruins had a two-man advantage for 1:54. The trio's of Datsyuk, Ericsson and Quincey and Zetterberg, DeKeyser and Lashoff withstood significant Boston possession and pressure, but were able to kill off the penalties with the assistance of Gustavsson behind them. Despite a late goal by
Milan Lucic to get within one, the Red Wings held on to the victory and returned to 2nd place in the Atlantic Division behind their Winter Classic opponents, the Toronto Maple Leafs.
As for tonight's contest, the Bluejackets open up a difficult four-game stretch for Detroit against Western Conference opponents (Columbus, Colorado, Phoenix, San Jose).
CORRECTION: Columbus is no longer in the Western Conference. My apologies for the error.
The Wings are 0-1 thus far in the young season against the Western Conference and as a whole, much has been made about the fact the Western Conference has a record of 28-7-3 vs. Eastern Conference opponents through the opening couple weeks of the season.
That being said, it should not be forgotten that the Jackets were 4-0-1 against the Red Wings last season.
That is not a misprint....
Columbus earned nine of a possible 10 points against the Wings. Bobrovsky had a .944 save percentage in four starts (3-0-1).
Needless to say, the Detroit faithful are hoping for a home sweep this evening by
Mike Illitch owned clubs.
The Red Wings are expected to go with the same lineup from Monday afternoon vs. the Bruins:
FORWARDS
Henrik Zetterberg - Pavel Datsyuk - Todd Bertuzzi
Johan Franzen - Stephen Weiss - Justin Abdelkader
Daniel Cleary - Joakim Andersson - Daniel Alfredsson
Drew Miller - Luke Glendening - Jordin Tootoo
DEFENSEMEN
Niklas Kronwall - Jonathan Ericsson
Kyle Quincey - Danny DeKeyser
Jakub Kindl - Brian Lashoff
GOALIES
Jonas Gustavsson (starting)
Jimmy Howard
SCRATCHES:
Mikael Samuelsson
Tomas Tatar
Brendan Smith
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