GAME DAY: SENATORS (8-4-10) @ RED WINGS (10-6-7)
The Red Wings will hope to avoid a repeat of the last time the Sens came to town tonight at The Joe. The last time Jason Spezza and the Sens came to town, the Sens had the best game of their season paired with possibly the Wings worst, resulting in a 6-1 Sens win in the first meeting between Daniel Alfredsson and his former team.
Game time is 7pm and will be broadcast on Fox Sports Detroit and TSN.
RED WINGS RECAP
Gustav Nyquist didn’t waste any time, so I won’t either. Huge win for the Wings. Finally a win and finally Nyquist gets to shine. After going winless in 7 games and not winning at home in over a month, the Red Wings finally put two points in the win column on Thursday night.
The Wings were led by a two-goal performance by Gustav Nyquist, finally in the lineup after being kept in Grand Rapids for the start of the season due to salary cap constraints.
AN ASIDE…
For a second let’s forget all the analysis and speculation and number crunching. Any sports fan had to be excited seeing Nyquist put in that first goal. Here’s a guy who should have been with the Wings all year but couldn’t get his shot because of reasons out of his control. When he did get his shot, he scores on his first shift, then put in the breakaway game winner.
The super-fan in everyone can get behind that story of taking advantage of an opportunity when it’s granted to you. Pair that with Nyquist’s humble, likeable attitude and you have marketing managers salivating at all the potential jersey sales for a new highly skilled player, deking his way into every fan’s good books.
After all the weeks of the “bring back Nyquist!… sentiment that echoed through the comments section, I loved seeing Nyquist come through big and help the Wings capture their first win at Joe Louis Arena in over a month. Something about it made it especially satisfying.
BACK TO REALITY
The Red Wings capitalized on the powerplay, dominated five on five play, and killed off a pivotal 5-3 shorthanded situation to earn the win Thursday night.
The Winged Wheel outshot the Hurricanes an astronomical 20 shots (47-27). While it isn’t often goalies get kudos for a loss in which they let in 4 goals, it’s commendable that Peters managed 43 saves and a .915 SV% against the Red Wings onslaught.
The top line did not score, though at a time when secondary scoring is a concern it isn’t such a bad thing. Henrik Zetterburg had three assists despite being separated from Pavel Datsyuk and Darren Helm buried a goal to get the third line on the score sheet.
It wasn’t a perfect game but it was as close to one as Wing’s fans have seen in a while at Joe Louis Arena and the burden of that lengthy winless streak at home is lifted.
RED WINGS OUTLOOK
Don’t expect much to change from Thursday night as the Senators return to Detroit for the first time since they laid a 6-1 beating on the Wings. Offense was being generated throughout the lineup against Carolina and the same will be expected against Ottawa.
Alfredsson is still not expected to be in the lineup, though I’m sure he’d like to get another game in against his former team prior to heading back to Ottawa on December 1st.
A win against the division rival Sens will put another 2 points between the two teams and stave off the Montreal Canadiens, who are only one point back of the Wings in the Atlantic division standings.
SENATORS OUTLOOK
After earning 10 of a possible 14 points to start the month of November, the Senators have lost three straight as they head to Detroit.
Their most recent loss against the Minnesota Wild was a back and forth affair, with Senators playing well but after 60 minutes they could not muster up the win.
Mika Zebanejad is expected to play on the top line with Jason Spezza and Milan Michalek. The youngster is coming off a strong game against the Wild (1G, 1A) and has 7 points in 14 games thus far this year.
Defenseman Erik Karlsson leads the team with 22 points (7G, 15A) in as many games and Bobby Ryan leads the team in goals with 10.
The Senators have the second best road power play percentage in the league. Unless Pavel Datsyuk continues to put on penalty killing clinics as he did in Thursday night 5-3 kill against the ‘Canes, the Wings need to avoid the penalty box and limit the Sens’ opportunities.
PROJECTED LINES
RED WINGS
Cleary – Datsyuk – Bertuzzi Franzen – Zetterburg – Nyquist Tatar –Helm – Abdelkader Miller – Andersson – Samuelsson
Kronwall – Ericsson Quincey – Kindl Lashoff – Smith
Jimmy Howard (starting) Jonas Gustavsson
Injuries: Alfredsson (groin), Weiss (groin), DeKeyser (shoulder)
SENATORS
Michalek – Spezza – Zibenajad MacArthur – Turris – Ryan Conacher – Smith – Neil Greening – Grant – Condra
Methot – Karlsson Cowen – Wiercioch Phillips – Borowiecki
Robin Lehner Craig Anderson
Injuries: None