On the Wings

Tonight is the third of four games between these two teams this season. The series is tied 1-1, with the Wings winning the most recent meeting 2-1 on January 2nd in Detroit. The Ducks won the first game, 4-1 on October 18 in Anaheim. The fourth and final game will be on March 26 in Detroit.

Like the Kings going into last night’s game, Anaheim has played only one game since losing to the Wings on the 2nd, a 4-3 loss to Columbus on Friday. The win extended a three-game skid to four, but the Ducks still lead the Western Conference with 62 points.

They’ve run into some injury trouble, with key players such as Chris Pronger (broken foot) and JS Giguere (groin) out as well as Todd Marchant (abdomin) and Franchois Beauchemin (spleen). They remain a dangerous team, however, with 24-goal-scoring star Teemu Selanne and defensemen Scott Niedermeyer remaining in the lineup, not to mention goalie Ilya Bryzgalov.

The Wings have a loss streak of their own going, having dropped their last two. The first was a supremely embarrassing 9-4 loss to the Sharks on Thursday, a game in which the Wings gave up 9 unanswered goals after jumping out to a 3-0 lead in the first. They also set a team record for most power play goals allowed in a game with 6. It was the most goals the Wings have given up since 1993.

Last night in LA, they scored a quick goal in both the first and second periods before losing their 2-0 lead by the 10:31 mark of the latter. They would go on to lose 4-2. It was their first loss to the Kings since October 12, 2002. It’s as though they’re set on setting bad records and snapping good streaks on this road trip.

Since Chris Osgood started last night, Dominik Hasek will be in net tonight.

Pavel Datsyuk (groin) shouldn’t be back until Tuesday night in Colorado.

Mikael Samuelsson should in the lineup tonight, though he had to leave the game early last night after taking a Nick Lidstrom shot off the knee in the third period.

A West Coast trip is usually a recipe for disaster with the Wings and playing the day after a loss is likely to just add to the mixture. They do have something going for them in that the Ducks are playing without a couple of their stars. However, I still can’t say that makes me very confident, not after watching them blow leads in two straight games.

Remember, the game is at 8:00 PM ET tonight, not 10:00 PM or 10:30 PM, thankfully.

Off topic: I’ve been meaning to do this for a few days now, but I keep forgetting: Welcome to the 21st century, Freep.com! I like the snazzy new look, but I like the RSS feeds even better. I love being able to get the headlines in Google Reader rather than having to go to the site and wait for it to load (especially since I’m at home and on dialup … for another week). The same goes for DetNews.com, though the site design could use an update.

(If both sites have had feeds for a while, I apologize, but I only noticed this week.)