Red Wings-Thrashers: Detroit GameDay

The Detroit Red Wings and the Atlanta Thrashers face off for the first and only time tonight at Joe Louis Arena. The teams have split their last two meetings, with the Wings winning 6-5 in overtime on December 31st, 2003, and the Thrashers winning  7-6 on December 13th, 2005.

The puck drops at 7:30 ET tonight. 

The 22-22-2 Thrashers are 3-2-1 in 2008, with wins over Carolina, Buffalo, and Pittsburgh. Their 3-2 shootout win over the Penguins halted a two-game skid in which they lost to Florida (3-2 SO) and Philadelphia (4-1). Prior to that, wins over Buffalo (5-2) and Carolina (5-4) sandwiched a 4-3 loss in a second game against the Hurricanes. Atlanta is second in the Southeast Division and 10th in the East, two points back of Boston.

Ilya Kovalchuk leads both the Thrashers and the League with 37 goals. His 62 points and 25 assists are also team bests. Marian Hossa (16), former Red Wing Slava Kozlov (12), and Todd White (10) are the only other Thrashers with 10-or-more goals. Hossa and rookie defenseman Tobias Enstrom both have 23 assists. Lately, Kozlov has been moved from the wing to second-line center for the Trashers.

The Thrashers will be without Brad Larsen (groin), Steve McCarthy (strained ribcage) and Jim Slater (groin). Eric Perrin will return to the lineup and “will skate with Bobby Holik and Pasquel Dupuis.”

Kari Lehtonen will get the start for Atlanta.

For the Thrashers’ perspective, see Blueland Roar, Do The Trashers Have Large Talons? (pre-game comments here), Talking Trash, and Thrash Talk.

The Wings fell to 4-1-1 in 2008 with a 3-2 loss in Ottawa Saturday night. It was one of the more disappointing games of the season, as they underachieved for about 40 minutes and through they made it a game in the third, the Senators pulled out the win. Of course, it probably didn’t help that Henrik Zetterberg was likely playing with flu symptoms, as pointed out by HockeyTownTodd yesterday.

The game followed a frustrating 6-5 shootout loss to Minnesota on Thursday. It was one of those rare nights where the defense let the opposition take over the game and as a result the Wings were lucky to escape with a point.

This slide began with the team’s too-tightly-contested 1-0 win over Colorado on the 8th. Prior to that, they had put on strong performances in games against Chicago (3-1) and Dallas (3-0, 4-1).

Despite the two losses, they retain their first place lead in the Central Division, Western Conference, and League with a 33-9-4 record and 70 points.

Henrik Zetterberg leads the team in goals (37) and points (55). Pavel Datsyuk is second with 55 points and 38 assists. Nick Lidstrom and Brian Rafalski are 1-2 in League-wide defenseman scoring with 41 and 38 points, respectively.

Aside from Zetterberg, the Wings have five players with 10 or more goals: Datsyuk (17), Tomas Holmstrom (17), Daniel Cleary (16), Valtteri Filppula (14), and Jiri Hudler (11). Rafalski and Johan Franzen both have 8 and should crack 10 relatively soon.

Hudler snapped a 7-game goal-less streak with the tying goal Saturday night. He seems to score in bursts, so keep an eye on him over the next couple games.

The team will be without forward Dallas Drake, who injured his knee in a collision with Ottawa’s Dany Heatley on Saturday. Though the team is calling the injury minor, he has missed two practices because of it. Aaron Downey will dress tonight instead and will skate with Tomas Kopecky and Kirk Maltby. That should help the team be a little more physical, which has been something of a problem lately.

Matt Ellis is a healthy scratch for the fourth straight game.

Here are the lines from practice, as recorded by Bruce MacLeod:

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Filppula-Datsyuk-Holmstrom
Hudler-Zetterberg-Cleary
Draper-Franzen-Samuelsson
Downey-Kopecky-Maltby

"

In another piece, MacLeod reports that the Wings are putting Franzen in the middle in order to test him against another big center, Bobby Holik. The move is in preparation for next week’s trip to California, in which they’ll face oversized forwards such as Joe Thornton and Ryan Getzlaf.

The defensive pairings should look like this:

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Lidstrom-Rafalski
Kronwall-Lilja
Lebda-Chelios

"

Hopefully Babcock will stick with that look and not resort to this.

As per the goalie rotation, Chris Osgood will get the nod tonight for the Wings. As pointed out by Ansar Khan, Osgood is 7-1-0-0 in his career versus the Thrashers.

For more of the Wings’ perspective, see Snapshots, Abel to Yzerman, HockeyTownTodd, Behind the Jersey, No Pun Intended, Red Wings Nation, yzerman is god, Detroit Hockey, LetsGoWings, and Winging It In Motown. Todd has some numbers over at HTT and OklahomaWingNut has a GDT at Kukla’s Korner Forums.

Also, Some pre-game interviews courtesy of Red Wings TV:

• Slava Kozlov
• Niklas Kronwall and Mike Babcock
• Dan Cleary 

Tonight is an important game for the Wings as they look to pull out of the dive they’ve been in over the last week or so and get back on track as they near a big road trip. You can bet the Trashers, who are looking to climb the standings, will play hard and that Ilya Kovalchuk will make things interesting more often than not. Hopefully the Wings will be prepared for that. A return to the dominant play of earlier this month would be nice, as would a return to their formerly dangerous power play.