On the Wings

Update (8:35 PM): According to FSN’s pre-game, Johan Franzen (upper body) will play tonight and will take Darryl Bootland’s place in the roster. Booter has been sent back to Grand Rapids to make room. Also, Niklas Kronwall will wear a plastic shield now, and has resolved to keep it low over his eyes and nose so that it’s actually useful. - Matt

Tonight is the fourth and final game between these two teams this season. The Wings lead the series 2-1, with wins November 1 (3-2) and February 11th (7-4), both of which took place in Detroit. The Flames won in Calgary on November 17th, 4-1.

The Flames have had a bit of a rough month, posting a 3-4-1 record thus far in March after opening with a pair of wins that stretched a February win-streak to five games. They’ve lost their last three, including games in Colorado on the 14th and Dallas the next night. They returned to Calgary to play Minnesota on Saturday, but dropped the first of three home games, 4-2. Their only wins in March came over Edmonton and St. Louis (two separate occasions).

Calgary currently stands at 8th place in the Conference, but Colorado is nipping at their heels with a 8-0-1 record since losing three in a row back in February. The Avs are just four points back and have a fairly light week, with two games against an Edmonton team that’s fading fast. The Flames have a tough schedule to round out the season, with a game against Nashville later this week followed by two games in Minnesota and visits to Vancouver as well as San Jose and Denver before the end.

Predictably, Jarome Iginla leads the team in scoring with 82 points, 34 of which are goals. He has a point in each of his last four games (1G, 3A).

Miika Kiprusoff should be in net tonight for the Flames. He has a 2.49 GAA and a .916 save percentage this season (12th and 10th overall), but his numbers are 3.16 and .910 against the Wings. He is 5th in wins with 34.

Former Red Wing Darren McCarty is out with a hernia.

The Wings are 5-2-1 in March thus far, with two of their three losses coming exactly a week apart. They first dropped a home game to Colorado 4-3 in overtime on the 4th. A week later, they lost 6-3 to Boston and six days after that, this past Saturday, they opened their late-season trip to Western Canada with a 4-1 loss in Vancouver. The high marks of the month, though, have been their three wins over Nashville: March 6th (4-3 SO), March 13th (5-2), and March 14th (4-2).

They are currently 4th in the Conference, sitting one point behind Nashville for the lead. It’s a difference the Wings ought to be able to make up, as they have a game in hand and play teams like Chicago, St. Louis, and Columbus in six of their 10 remaining games, while the Predators face stiffer competition in the majority of theirs.

Pavel Datsyuk is the team’s leading scorer, with 77 points (22G, 55A). Pavel has scored at least a point in each of his last 10 games, for a total of 16, 13 of which have been assists.

As reported yesterday, the starter for Detroit will be Dominik Hasek. Dom leads the league in GAA at 2.14, but his .908 save percentage is only good for 21st. He is third in wins with 35.

Also yesterday’s news: Johan Franzen (upper body) could return tonight (the News says today he’s “likely to play”)while Dan Cleary (knee sprain) is definitely still out (the News says “probably”).

With Chris Chelios having flown back to Detroit on Sunday, the Wings’ six defensemen will include Andreas Lilja, who was a healthy scratch on Saturday to make room for Danny Markov’s return from an upper body injury.

Looks like Niklas Kronwall will be cage-free tonight, as the Free Press reports that it’s been retired two months after his nose was almost cut off by Marek Svatos’ skate. Rather than destroy the mask he had to wear a month longer than expected, Nik told Helene St. James he might frame it. Hopefully this will mean Kronwall, who had a number of tough nights since the cage went on, will elevate his play now that his vision will be less obscured.

The St. James piece also has the financial terms of Tomas Kopecky’s contract: $900,000 over two years.

It has no bearing on tonight’s game, but Eric Duhatschek of the Globe and Mail wrote last night that Kris Draper believes Todd Bertuzzi will be in the lineup Thursday night against the Blue Jackets. While the Detroit writers did say that was a possibility, they suggested the Wings may instead wait until Saturday so that Bertuzzi can practice again with the team on Friday (they have Wednesday off). Who’s right? We’ll find out soon enough.

It’s important that the Wings get back in the saddle tonight and pull a good effort out, if not a win. They looked bad in Vancouver as they put on one of their worst mental performances of the season. They cannot allow themselves to become so emeshed in penalty troubles and they need to show a better effort as a whole. If he sticks with his habit, Dominik Hasek should have a good game after a poor outing Saturday. The rest of the team needs to follow his example by wiping that game from Hockeytown’s collective memory with an A-game performance against the Flames similar to the one they put on last month.