On the Wings

This afternoon, the Wings will face the Devils for the first and only time this season. Detroit won the last meeting between these two teams, 5-2 on December 6th, 2005, in the 1,000th game at Joe Louis Arena. To cap off the win, Steve Yzerman scored a highlight reel goal in the third period on backup goalie Scott Clemmensen after Dan Cleary sprung him into the Devils zone all alone.

The Devils remain competitive this season, sitting just four points behind the Rangers for the lead in the Atlantic Division. After some troubles at the end of November - earning just one point on a four-game Pacific Division road trip - New Jersey kicked off December with five wins in a row.

That streak was halted when they hosted the Sabres on Tuesday and lost 3-2. The loss was a rarity for the team, which has an Eastern Conference-best 11-2-1 home record. They traveled up the Eastern seaboard on Thursday to face the Bruins hoping to get back on the right track, but they were unsuccessful, losing 5-3.

Martin Brodeur did not play Thursday night, but will be in net today, no doubt. He is 7-6-1-0 against the Wings in his career (regular season), with a 2.06 GAA.

The Wings had a three-game winning streak halted by a loss to the Senators on Tuesday. They dominated for much of the game, but handed the Sens three goals on a platter (albeit one was on a power play after a lame penalty) and couldn’t make up for it in the face of Ray Emery’s stellar play in net.

They had the tables turned on them, in a way, on Thursday, when the Hawks fairly dominated them, but couldn’t win because of Dominik Hasek’s own great play. Three great Wings goals later and the Hawks were in the same position the Wings were in against the Sens: trying to come back in a game they would have won without such a strong game by the opposing goalie and without a couple defensive gaffes.

Now, the Wings will head into the Devils’ home turf, a place in which they have not won since 1993, according to the AP. The game seems to be a bit of a schedule oddity, as it is the middle game of a three-stop road trip for the Wings, who had to travel a third of the way across the country to get to New Jersey after playing in Chicago. Following the game today, they will have to turn around and head to Columbus for Monday’s game, to wrap up the trip. Have to love the zig-zagging across half the country.

Dominik Hasek should get the nod today.

The Wings’ injury list now stands at Danny Markov (hand) and Tomas Kopecky (collarbone). The latter’s injury came at the start of the third period of Thursday’s game and required surgery Friday to repair. Kopecky will be out 10-12 weeks, apparently.

Niklas Kronwall is apparently going to return today after missing far too many six games with a groin injury.

The Wings need to watch out for the Devils, who would love to make up for their home loss on Tuesday with a win over their old rivals. They’ll need to play a more controlled defensive game than they did against the Hawks, but demonstrate the same offensive creativity that forced Emery to be so good Tuesday and resulted in three great goals on Thursday. Brodeur is a hard nut to crack but they’ve done it before and need to do it again.