On the Wings

Update (2:40 PM): Ansar Khan has more on the Cleary and MacDonald situations. Basically, MacDonald is excited about the opportunity to get more playing time in Boston, and Johan Franzen will replace Cleary on the second line tonight. Also, we shouldn’t expect Stefan Liv or Jimmy Howard to get called up at all for the rest of the season, as Hasek will be backup whenever Osgood plays, though it’s unlikely he’d ever enter the game off the bench.  - Matt

Update (1:57 PM): More on Cleary. Ansar Khan via email: “… Babcock said it’s a lower-body injury and wouldn’t provide any info except that he’s being looked at in Detroit.” So, he won’t be on the two-game road trip, unless he joins the team in Chicago for their game there on Tuesday. - Matt

Update (1:50 PM): MacDonald has been claimed off waivers by Boston, according to TSN. That’s very unfortunate, as Joey is a better goalie than his stats indicated. The Wings have depth to spare in the goaltending department, but it was good to have MacDonald around. I wasn’t expecting any team to take him, though, because he is still unproven at the NHL level. Boston must remember the season had had last year in Grand Rapids.

Anyway, Hasek will now back up Osgood tonight. (thanks to Mike for the link). - Matt

Update (1:40 PM): I was right about Cleary being injured, though I was wrong about how. Bruce MacLeod, posting in the Red Wings Central forums, reports that he’ll sit out the game with a “lower body injury” sustained in a hip check last night. The spearing the stick gave him had nothing to do with it. (via. Gorilla Crouch). - Matt

Tonight is the fourth of eight games between these two Central Division rivals this season. The Wings lead the series 2-1, with wins November 10th (3-0) and January 17th (5-3). The Preds won the November 25th meeting, 6-2. They will play each other four times next month, including a home-home series on the 13th and 14th.

Since losing to the Wings last month, the Preds have posted an 8-6-1 record, which was largely inflated by a four-game winning streak immediately following the January 17th game against Detroit. During that stretch, they beat the Hawks twice, and the Jackets and Blues once each. In February, they have been winning alternate games, except for their consecutive losses on the 16th and 17th, first to St. Louis and then to Minnesota.

The Peter Forsberg Era began on February 15th and thus far, the Preds are 1-1-1 with their new star. Forsberg has been held pointless in those three games and is a minus-2. He was not even on the ice for any of Nashville’s five goals in their most recent game, a 6-5 shootout loss to Montreal.

Tomas Vokoun was in net for the loss to the Canadiens so it’s possible that the “backup,” Chris Mason, will get the start tonight.

The Wings are coming off a disappointing 4-3 shootout loss to the Oilers last night. It was a horribly officiated game, with the refs dealing out 20 minutes of penalties in the first period alone. At one point, they sent an Oiler (Pouliot) to the box who was not responsible for the penalty that caused the center ice official to put his arm up. I believe it was Smid who roughed up a Detroit player at the blueline, at which point the ref signaled a penalty, but the play was not stopped until after a minor bit of contact between Pouliot and another Wing. At that point, Pouliot was sent to the box instead of Smid. The refs seemed bent on making calls where there were none last night, in the first period especially.

There was a dangerous moment in the first where Joffrey Lupul passed the puck up ice just before getting nailed at the blueline by Niklas Kronwall. Nik’s shoulder went square into Lupul’s face and sent him flying onto his back. Kronwall didn’t leave his feet to make contact, but he did after contact was made. Lupul began to bleed and had to leave the game with a concussion. Kronwall has given an interference penalty on the play, but the Oilers didn’t get a power play because Raffi Torres’ retaliation earned them a penalty of their own. Another hit to the head, though I honestly don’t think it was as malicious as Torres’ hit on Williams earlier this season was.

Mike Babcock mixed up the lines a bit, but Dave at Gorilla Crouch has more on that.

Anyway, it was not a very exciting game until overtime, when things opened up and both teams nearly put it away. In the shootout, the only shooter to score was Ryan Smyth, though Dominik Hasek had made the save. His backwards momentum took him into the net, however, and the puck went with him. The Wings got a point when they really could have used two.

Chris Osgood will start tonight and I suspect Joey MacDonald will be backing him up, though he’s been waived. Based on what Ansar Khan wrote yesterday, it seems MacDonald can still play before getting sent down, if he clears waivers. I don’t think the Wings are ready for Hasek to back Osgood up yet.

Matt Ellis has been called up, which seems to indicate there’s an injury among the forwards. It could be Dan Cleary, as I wrote earlier today.

This is an important game for the Wings, who’ll have to dig deep and find it within themselves to play a better back-to-back game than they usually do because a loss would mean they’d once again fall behind the Preds. A win would put them 3 points up and, with Nashville’s inconsistency this month, give them a little breathing room.