The Red Wings visit the Coyotes tonight, game starts at 10:00 PM EST.
Brunner out- Damien Brunner missed practice yesterday but was
said to be "day to day", there wasn't even a "lower, middle, upper" body
injury publicized. It was an "undisclosed" injury. Today he said he is bothered by a Hip Flexor, only
practiced for 10 minutes, then left the ice. He will not play tonight.
He said it's been bothering him for the last couple weeks, but got worse
the last couple games. This could help explain his struggle recently. The Hip Flexor muscles are the group of muscles on the inside of your hip and are what allows you to (among other things) pull your knee upwards. Basically, most of the movements you need to be able to do in order to skate, those muscles are responsible for.
DeKeyser out- DeKeyser has been practicing with the team, but won't play tonight. Babcock wants to make sure he's ready before throwing him into a game, especially since he's never player at the NHL level, against NHL competition and with us needing every point we can get right now.
Lashoff in- Lashoff was send down to Grand Rapids after the game last Sunday so that DeKeyser could be added to the roster. Once the roster limit was suspended after the trade deadline yesterday Lashoff was called back up and will play tonight. Which means...
White out- Ian White will once again be a healthy scratch. I"m sure he'll have something to say about it later.
Samuelsson's mysterious injury is a sore pectoral (chest) muscle. He's "day-to-day", but Babcock said it doesn't look like he's playing anytime soon.
Quincey won't play tonight, but Babcock said he'll play tomorrow night against Colorado. He said his sinuses were still causing him issues as a result of the broken orbital bone. Clearly flying is safe for him, and I'm not sure to what extent/ if at all, the altitude in Colorado will affect him.
There's been more talk of Todd Bertuzzi recently, but I'm still not expecting him back soon, if at all. It's great to hear that he's making progress, but it sounds like he still has a ways to go. There were a couple tweets that made me smile though.
Not necessarily game related, but this was refreshing to hear from Babcock.
Factoid:
The Wings are up to 203 man games lost this season, and we've only played 36 games. We still lead the league in man games lost. Want to hear something crazy? As of 2 games ago, Boston had lost the fewest man games to injury in the league with... only 22. Detroit has several players who have missed that many or more games on their own. Maybe there's magic healing powers in the water in Boston.
Detroit vs. Phoenix:
Tonight's game is the 130th all-time meeting between DET and PHX/WPG
This is DET's 65th all-time road game at PHX/WPG
DET's all-time record vs PHX/WPG: 63-40-22-3
DET's all-time road record at PHX/WPG: 28-19-14-2
Last head-to-head game: DET 3, PHX 2 on Mar. 25 at Jobing.com Arena
DET is 6-2-2 in its last 10 regular season games vs PHX
DET is 3-1-1 in its last 5 regular season road games at PHX
DET's PP is 4-21 (19.0%) over the last 5 regular season games vs PHX
DET's PK is 13-16 (81.3%) over the last 5 regular season games vs PHX
J. Franzen has 5 points (3-2-5) over the last 5 games vs PHX
P. Datsyuk has 8 points (1-7-8) over the last 5 games vs PHX
P. Datsyuk has 57 points (14-43-57) in 39 career games vs PHX
H. Zetterberg has 42 points (17-25-42) in 35 career games vs PHX
J. Howard is 7-0-2 with a 2.23 GAA and .928 SV% in 9 career games vs PHX
DET is 6-4-0 vs the Pacific Division this season (14-5-1 in 2011-12)
Here's the expected lineup:
Forwards
|
Justin Abdelkader
|
Pavel Datsyuk
|
Johan Franzen
|
Valtteri Filppula
|
Henrik Zetterberg
|
Daniel Cleary
|
Drew Miller
|
Joakim Andersson
|
Gustav Nyquist
|
Patrick Eaves
|
Cory Emmertom
|
Jordin Tootoo
|
Defense
|
Niklas Kronwall
|
Jonathan Ericsson
|
Carlo Colaiacovo
|
Brendan Smith
|
Jakub Kindl
|
Brian Lashoff
|
Goalies
|
Jimmy Howard
|
Jonas Gustavsson
|
Healthy Scratch
|
Danny Dekeyser
|
Ian White
|
Injured
|
Todd Bertuzzi (Back)
|
Damien Brunner (Hip Flexor)
|
Darren Helm (Back)
|
Mikael Samuelsson (Bruised Pectoral
Muscle)
|
Kyle Quincey (Fractured Cheek)
|
Let's Go Red Wings!!!