After that, the Wings' defensemen are pretty small. Lebda is listed at 195, but, at 5'9", he is the shortest defender. Brian Rafalski is just 5'10" and 191 lbs. Chelios carries 191 lbs on a six-foot frame, but Kronwall is listed at 189 at the same height. Nick Lidstrom weighs in at 189, but is 6'1".
Lidstrom is, predictably, the guy getting the big minutes in Detroit. His 26:43 in average TOI leads all skaters in the Winged Wheel. Rafalski (24:04), Stuart (21:09), and Kronwall (21:06) each cracked 20 minutes just about every night. Andreas Lilja averaged 18:13. Chris Chelios and Brett Lebda each averaged between 16:00 and 17:00 minutes a game.
When fully healthy, the Wings' defense should look like this:
Lidstrom-Rafalski
Kronwall-Stuart
Chelios-LiljaLebda
Jonathan Ericsson, Derek Meech, Kyle Quincey, and Garrett Stafford have also filled in when needed. Ericsson and Quincey are going to be playoff call-ups, but hopefully will only see time in practice. Meech also should only be a practice player, if all goes well.
Goalies
Dominik Hasek will be the starter this series. He posted a 27-10-3 record and appeared in 41 games. He finished with a 2.14 GAA, which was good for 4th in the League, and a .902 save-percentage. He is not the goalie he once was, but he remains a good one and will be doing his job as long as he allows no soft goals.
He will be backed up by Chris Osgood, who finished first with a 2.09 GAA. His record was 27-9-4 and he appeared in 43 games. He posted a save-percentage of .914. If Hasek were to go down with injury or not play up to the standard expected of him, Osgood is well capable of stepping in.
Hasek and Osgood have a combined 202 games of post-season experience.
Injuries
The Wings lost 199 man games to injury this season. During the month of February, they had the distinction of having six regulars, including their four most important defensemen, out at the same time.
The current injured list includes Tomas Kopecky (torn ACL, sprained MCL, out for season) and Kirk Maltby (hamstring, late in the series).
According to Bruce MacLeod, Brad Stuart (broken finger) will play tonight, as will Mikael Samuelsson (groin).
Some doubt was cast on the status of Tomas Holmstrom (groin) yesterday, but it looks like he's in tonight.
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