On the Wings

Apparently, Niklas Kronwall has had a setback and will not be returning to the ice Wednesday after all, Ansar Khan reports. He may be back as soon as Friday when the Blues come to town, though, but, “the Wings aren’t going to take any chances.”

According to Khan, Holmstrom is still on track to return tomorrow night, unless he has a set back himself during the morning skate.

Khan also has a little more on Chris Osgood’s injury and the goaltending situation. He thinks the Wings will stick with the plan Holland articulated yesterday: Hasek will back up Joey MacDonald when the latter starts.

This policy stands in contrast to the team’s practice of just this past weekend, when Stefan Liv was promoted and joined the team in Edmonton in order to back up MacDonald against the Oilers the night after Hasek played in Calgary.

The Wings haven’t totally given up on the idea of preventing Dom going into games cold, however:

Babcock said if Hasek has to relieve MacDonald, they’ll try to do between periods, when Hasek will have some time to stretch and get loose. But it sounds like, if it comes to it, they would just ride MacDonald, no matter how badly he was getting shelled, rather than take a chance on inserting Hasek. The only problem would be if MacDonald is injured.

Khan doesn’t see MacDonald starting very often (the actual likely number would be two or three times, Ansar, depending on whether Osgood is early or late coming back) and so doesn’t see the Wings bringing up Liv.

This whole thing makes me nervous. Get better soon, Osgood!