GAME DAY
The Oilers come to The Joe tonight and Wings fans will hope it’s a repeat of the last time these two teams met, when the Wings walked all over the Oilers en route to a 5-0 win. The Oilers are at the bottom of the Western Conference, and are coming off a 7-2 loss at the hands of the St. Louis Blues. With that said, the Oilers are 5-3-2 over their last ten and won’t roll over easy.
Teemu Pulkkinen will be the latest Grand Rapid Griffin to make the trip to Detroit. The Finn will reportedly be making his NHL debut tonight. Pulkkinen was drafted by the Wings in the fourth round (111th Overall) in the 2010 entry draft, and he brings a heavy shot to the big club. In 60 games for the Griffins this year, Pulkkinen has 51 points (26G, 25A, the true test will be if he can bring that scoring touch with him to the NHL level. He’ll get his chance skating alongside Cory Emmerton and Daniel Alfredsson on the third line.
Jimmy Howard will get the chance to break a personal three game losing streak tonight against the Oilers. With a record of 13-15-10, Howard has had somewhat of an off-year and he needs to find his form down the stretch if the Wings have any chance of making it to the post season.
In what seems like a perpetual rebuild, the Oilers are in the final stretch of another losing season. Edmonton hasn’t made the playoffs since losing in the Finals in 2006, and each year starts off as the year where things get turned around. It’s a frustrating state of affairs in Edmonton where nothing seems to change the fate of the team, just have a look at Oilers Blogger Matt Henderson’s take leading up to their last game agains St Louis for some evidence of that. While all the cliches about any given team winning on any given night echo through every interview leading up to this game lets look at this game the way it should be. The Wings need to win this game and it should be theirs for the taking. Yes there are injuries, yes the Oilers have strung together some wins lately but let’s face it, this isn’t the Boston Bruins. This isn’t the Penguins, or the Blackhawks or the Blues, they’re all must-win games from here on out but tonight the Wings can't afford to give up two points to a much lesser team.
STARTING LINEUPS (SUBJECT TO CHANGE)
RED WINGS
Abdelkader - Legwand - Franzen Nyquist - Sheahan - Tatar Pulkkinen - Emmerton - Alfredsson Miller - Glendening - Bertuzzi
Kronwall - Ericsson Quincey - DeKeyser Smith - Lashoff
Jimmy Howard (starting) Petr Mrazek
Injuries: Weiss, Helm, Zetterberg, Datsyuk, Cleary, Gustavsson, Jurco, Andersson
OILERS
Yakupov - Nugent-Hopkins - Eberle Hall - Gagner - Perron Hendricks - Gordon - Joensuu Gazdic - Smyth - Jones
Fraser - Schultz Marincin - Petry Kiefbom - Ference
Ben Scrivens (Starting) Viktor Fasth
Injuries: Belov