On the Wings

Update (12:20 PM): Helene St. James reports that Chris Osgood will start tonight due to Hasek’s leg bruise. The bruise isn’t a serious injury by any means, but, as Babcock told her, “there’s no sense fooling around.” Dom will back up Osgood, which is not something that happened very often last year due to the risk of having to send Hasek out there cold. It’s obviously not worth calling up Jimmy Howard or someone else for backup purposes here.

The only way Dom sees the ice tonight is if Ozzie goes down with an injury of his own. - Matt

Tonight is the first of four games between these two former Western Conference Quarterfinal opponents. The teams split the 06-07 series, 2-2, while the Wings won their first-round playoff matchup, in six games. They’ll play twice more next month and will finish up with the fourth game in February.

The Flames are winless thus far this season. They dropped their opener to Philadelphia, 3-2 on the 4th, and then followed that up with a 4-3 overtime loss to Vancouver on Saturday. Both games were at home. They kick off a four-game road trip tonight and will make stops in Dallas, Nashville, and Denver before returning home for a seven-game homestand beginning against the Kings on the 18th.

Daymond Langkow has had a fast start to the season, having scored two goals in each of his team’s games. Jarome Iginla provided secondary assists on two of Langkow’s four goals, but that’s all the offense the Flames’ captain has provided so far.

Miikka Kiprusoff has shouldered both losses and stands with a pedestrian 3.36 GAA and .877 save-percentage. He’ll be in net tonight.

The Flames’ have two players injured, according to the Free Press: David Moss, a forward out with an “upper body” injury, and Brent Krahn, a goalie, out with a knee injury on top of the fact that he’s Kipper’s backup.

The Wings have won two of their first three, beginning with a 3-2 shootout win over the Ducks in the opener. Then they lost in a shootout, Saturday night in Chicago 4-3. They rebounded from that disappointing loss with a solid game Monday night, beating one of their old playoff nemeses, the Edmonton Oilers, 4-2.

Tomas Holmstrom is the team’s goal leader with three, but Henrik Zetterberg leads the team in points with seven. Captain Nick Lidstrom is not far behind, with five points.

Dominik Hasek has started all three games so far this season and has mostly looked sharp. He has a respectable 2.21 GAA, but his save percentage is .887. That’s a product of the Wings’ shot-limiting defensive philosophy, so any shot that does get through Hasek wrecks his percentage. Dom may not play tonight due to a bruise above his right knee. If he doesn’t, Chris Osgood will get the nod.

Johna Franzen is the only other Wings injury. The player standing in during his absence, Matt Ellis, only had 3:11 in ice time Monday night. He didn’t stand out in any negative way, however, so he may have earned another minute or two tonight.

The Wings need to pick up where they left off Monday night and then take it up a notch from there. The Flames haven’t had a fast start, but they’re not pushovers and no doubt will be prepared to take advantage of the Wings if they come out taking them for granted. Kiprusoff always presents a challenge, if nothing else, so the offense will have to be on top of things (i.e. rebounds) tonight.