10 replies to this topic

[YzerFan19]

Kicking this game thread off just a bit early since we've been waiting so long for this game...

 

The Red Wings begin their 2013 season tonight in St. Louis, visiting the defending Central Division Champions.  This makes Detroit defenseman Carlo Colaiacovo's first game in the Winged Wheel against his former team.

 

The Blues made the move on their blue line that the Wings declined to on Friday, signing bought-out veteran defenseman Wade Redden to a one-year deal.  Redden will join the team today but not play tonight.

 

With Nicklas Lidstrom having retired, Tomas Holmstrom about to retire, Brad Stuart having moved back to San Jose, Jiri Hudler gone to Calgary, and Darren Helm, Todd Bertuzzi and Jakub Kindl all hurting (only Helm is on injured reserve right now), the Wings' lineup looks a bit different than fans might be used to.  The Wings have been skating with the following lines:

 

Henrik Zetterberg - Pavel Datsyuk - Damien Brunner

Mikael Samuelsson - Valtteri Filppula - Johan Franzen

Patrick Eaves - Justin Abdelkader - Daniel Cleary

Drew Miller - Cory Emmerton - Jordin Tootoo

 

Niklas Kronwall - Jonathan Ericsson

Kyle Quincey - Brendan Smith

Ian White - Carlo Colaiacovo

 

Jimmy Howard will get the start opposite Jaroslav Halak of the Blues.

 

Game time tonight is 8:00 PM on Fox Sports Detroit.

[MonicaMcAlister]

One thing I worry about is what going from being Nick Lidstroms defensive pair to being Carlo Colaiacovo's on the bottom pair will do to White's game.

 

Looking forward to seeing Quincey/Smith - hoping it's better than Rafalski/Lebda.

[YzerFan19]

I tweeted earlier that the Quincey/Smith pair looks interesting to me.  A lot of potential.

 

And according to the people at the morning skate, it'll be Mursak on the third line, not Eaves.

[YzerFan19]

Unless I'm missing it, doesn't look like a ton of Blues played during the lockout.  Advantage to the Wings' top line?

[YzerFan19]

Power play already looking special.

[YzerFan19]

Well hell.  Wings seemed to be doing a better job of getting set up on offense but who needs to get set up, eh?

[YzerFan19]

Solid PK, if we're looking for positives.

[YzerFan19]

Really dislike that last penalty.  Really dislike that whole period, though.

[YzerFan19]

Wings looking awful and Mursak is hurt.  Awesome.

[YzerFan19]

Next five goals are huge.

[YzerFan19]

Much has been said already about how one game does not a season make and how the Red Wings have had bad games before.  Both are entirely true.  I'm not going to say that the season is over after sixty awful minutes of play.

 

That said, they were sixty very awful minutes of play.  How the Wings rebound on Monday will be very telling, as we'll see if tonight was part of a trend or a one-off occurrence.

 

I will say that the performance of the defense is why I wanted Detroit to sign Wade Redden.  They don't have a lot of options right now in case the lack of defense is indeed a trend.

 

Of course, you're not going to win a ton of games with only 14 shots, so it's not just the defense that needs work.

 

If we want to look at some historical perspective, there are a couple things about previous first games with a new captain, as tonight's outing was for Henrik Zetterberg.

 

The Red Wings lost the first games with both Steve Yzerman and Nicklas Lidstrom wearing the C.  Like Zetterberg, in Yzerman's first game Detroit allowed six goals.  Things worked out pretty well eventually in both cases.