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The Detroit Red Wings face a staunch challenge this evening when they host the red-hot Tampa Bay Lightning at the Joe Louis Arena (6:00pm ET). The Lightning (10-3-1) are coming off a 7-4 victory over the Columbus Blue Jackets on Saturday night and have won four straight games, in addition to six of their last seven. Detroit (7-3-4) regain some positive momentum on Friday night after a disappointing 0-2-1 road trip this past week, with a 4-2 victory on Friday night against the New Jersey Devils.
Shortly before Friday night’s contest, the Wings announced that
Pavel Datsyuk would miss the contest due to a groin issue. “The Magic Man” did not skate on Saturday and is expected to miss this evening’s contest as well. His absence is being deemed more of a precautionary measure by the Wings, with the expectation he would benefit considerably from not playing until next Friday’s contest against Chicago.
Nevertheless, the Wings will attempt to improve on their 5-1-1 record at home with the return of rearguard
Kyle Quincey from an ankle injury.
Brian Lashoff is the likely choice to sit to make room for Quincey. Meanwhile,
Stephen Weiss will not play this evening for Detroit, yet is hopeful to return to the lineup next weekend against Chicago. Standing in his way will be a mini-training camp for him of sorts, with a week's worth of practices needed without a setback before he can be cleared.
It seems rather fitting that the talk of Weiss possibly returning to the lineup comes on the day of the return of the player he was “supposed” to replace in former Red Wing,
Valtteri Filppula. The Lightning have sniped 54 goals in 14 games (3.86 goals per game). Filppula has 12 points during that span,
Steven Stamkos leads the club with a team-leading eight goals and diminutive center
Tyler Johnson paces the offense with a team-leading 17 points.
Goaltender
Ben Bishop (8-1-1), received the night off last night in Columbus, is 4-1-0 with a 1.47 goals-against average in six career games (five starts) against Detroit.
Jimmy Howard (6-2-3), will face one of his toughest challenges to date in the young season, as Tampa is unlikely to provide the light workload (17 shots) Howard faced on Friday night against New Jersey.
Here are tonight's expected forward lines and pairings:
DETROIT RED WINGS
Gustav Nyquist - Henrik Zetterberg - Johan Franzen
Tomas Tatar - Riley Sheahan - Justin Abdelkader
Andrej Nestrasil - Darren Helm - Daniel Cleary
Drew Miller - Luke Glendening - Joakim Andersson
Jonathan Ericsson - Niklas Kronwall
Danny DeKeyser - Brendan Smith
Kyle Quincey - Jakub Kindl
Jimmy Howard (starting)
Petr Mrazek
Brian Lashoff (scratch)
Tomas Jurco (scratch)
Pavel Datsyuk (groin)
Stephen Weiss (groin)
TAMPA BAY LIGHTNING
Valtteri Filppula – Steven Stamkos – Ryan Callahan
Ondrej Palat – Tyler Johnson – Nikita Kucherov
Brian Boyle – Brenden Morrow – J.T. Brown
Jonathan Drouin – Vladislav Namestnikov – Cedric Paquette
Matthew Carle – Anton Stralman
Jason Garrison – Radko Gudas
Eric Brewer – Andrej Sustr
Ben Bishop (starting)
Evgeni Nabokov
Mark Barberio (scratch)
Brett Connolly (lower body)
Alex Killorn (upper body)
Victor Hedman (fractured finger)
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