On the Wings

Update (1:07 PM): Helene St. James reports that Holmstrom had a successful morning skate and that he will be in the lineup tonight. I’m not sure I’ll believe her until I see him out there, though. - Matt

Tonight is the third of four meetings between these two teams this season. So far, they’ve split the series, with the Canucks winning the first game 3-1 on October 5th and the Wings getting revenge last week in Vancouver with a 3-2 win on the 15th.

Since losing to the Wings, the Canucks have won two games, both of which came over Central Division opponents St. Louis and Chicago. The win over the Hawks ended a six game homestand where they went 3-3-0. Tonight’s game kicks off a three-game road trip that will take them to Nashville for a game tomorrow night and to Colorado Saturday night.

The Wings haven’t been quite so successful since beating the Canucks, going 0-1-1 to finish up their Western Canada trip. They dropped a game to Calgary on the 17th (3-1) but earned a point in Edmonton the next night by forcing overtime with just over 3 seconds left in the game, eventually losing in a shootout.

Niklas Kronwall is still going to be out with a groin injury, despite the fact that the media reports just about every day that he’ll be back for the next game.

Tomas Holmstrom should be back tonight unless he had a Kronwall-esque setback during the morning skate.

Chris Osgood will not dress, meaning Joey MacDonald will back up Dominik Hasek instead.

The News reports that there will be a ribbon-cutting ceremony today at 4:30 for the new Gordie Howe entrance to JLA and for the new-spangled LED scoreboard. I’d heard about the scoreboard but missed the bit about a new entrance.

The Wings need to pick up where they left off on Saturday and have another dominating performance. This time, however, they need to win. Putting the puck in the Canucks’ net would help, as would keeping it out of their own. They seem to have forgotten that in Edmonton.

Admin note: I’m on Thanksgiving Break at the moment and will be until Sunday afternoon/evening. That means I won’t have a 24-hour connection to the internet so timely updates will be a bit hit-or-miss. I’ll still be posting the daily posts (notes, previews, summaries - though I may not have one on Friday’s game), but updates throughout the day will be fewer and further between than usual. I think it’s safe to say that goes for the other writers here, as well.