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The Detroit Red Wings will play host to the travelling Calgary Flames who are playing game four of their five game road trip.
Tonight has the potential to be a good game for the visiting team, as it appears that the Wings continue to struggle to find wins losing three in a row most recently. Moreover, the Wings home record has been rather abysmal as they currently sit with a record of 5-9-6, compared to their road record of 10-3-3.
And if that wasn’t enough for the Flames to use to their advantage, Detroit has also been struggling to find the back of the net, scoring just seven goals in their last six games played, all losses might I add. While the Flames road record (7-9-2) isn’t exactly strong itself, Calgary has been finding success with their hard work and are due for a win, given the amount of close games which they’ve had of late.
The Wings have been without captain Henrik Zetterberg for quite some time, and their leading scorer Pavel Datsyuk just recently returned. Furthermore, they are also without Darren Helm (shoulder), Stephen Weiss (groin), Jimmy Howard (sprained MCL), Johan Franzen (head), LW Justin Abdelkader (head), and Gustav Nyquist (groin).
That is a rather significant list of injuries and key players for their squad and regardless of said adversity, the team feels that it isn’t reason for their lack of success.
“There's no excuse whatsoever. Injuries got nothing to do with it," defenseman Niklas Kronwall said. "We've got to get back to basics, but at the same time, enough talking, we've been talking about. It's time for us to get out there and actually show it on the ice."
With respect to injuries, Calgary is finally approaching a point where they will have a full roster (knock on wood). With Dennis Wideman the only key injury remaining, the Flames have been able to battle through much adversity of their own and I imagine are looking forward to having the veteran defender back on the blue line sooner rather than later.
Wideman was expected to miss six to eight weeks with a broken foot when placed on the IR in late November. He is expected to return sometime in early January if all things go well.
As mentioned, despite experiencing a losing streak of their own, Calgary has shown many positive traits in their last ten games played and as such, are due for a win or two.
Having played the Boston Bruins twice in just over a week, the Flames managed to keep both games rather close and also impressed playing against the New York Rangers just a few days ago.
With their defensive play starting to improve, their work ethic an apparent top priority in terms of game plan, the Flames have the fight and drive needed to compete night in night out despite having a roster which opposing fan bases may critic as ”derisory”. With players such as Kris Russell, Jiri Hudler, Sean Monahan, and Mark Giordano playing big roles for the team, they have found ways to play as a group and put out a good on ice product.
"I think we fight. We try. We do everything. ... There's no other way than just keep going like that and the luck will come back on our side for sure." said Berra.
In net, it appears that Karri Ramo will get the nod, while TJ Galiardi and David Jones are healthy scratches. Mike Cammalleri is expected back in the lineup tonight as the winger was out with the flu. Here are the expected lineups for tonight’s bout…if any changes come about I will update them.
Cammalleri - Stajan - Stempniak
Glencross – Monahan - Hudler
Byron – Backlund - Jones
Bouma - Colborne - McGrattan
Russell - Brodie
Giordano - Smid
Butler - O’Brien
Ramo
The Flames will play their final road game against the Pittsburgh Penguins Saturday night which will be an early game scheduled for 1pm ET.
At this point, there are no current updates to really provide in terms of Sven Baertschi’s progress playing with the AHL Heat, as he has played one game to date registering no points.
That’s all for today, thanks for reading!
Calgary Flames Blogger • 
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