Detroit Red Wings: A battle between a pair of Original Six

The Detroit Red Wings will try and kick the losing trend tonight as they host the Habs. The Montreal Canadians have beaten the Wings in each of their last six matchups.

The Detroit Red Wings have lost 6 of their last 8 games. Despite playing exceptionally well Sunday evening against the defending Stanley Cup Champions, they fell short losing to the Washington Capitals.

The Wings will look for a better fate tonight when the Montreal Canadians roll into Motown looking to make quick work of the Wings. Not so fast, this is a winnable game for the Wings. They need to play a complete game as they did verses the Predators and Capitals.

The Habs are led by forward Max Domi who is enjoying a breakout type season. Domi has 38 points on the season, which is just shy of a point per game for the son of Tie.

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The Habs like to roll four lines, and that depicts Domi only playing 17:41 TOI per night. It’s much to low for a player of his caliber in my opinion. I would want Drouin, Domi, and agitator Brenden Gallagher up around 20 per night.

Jonathan Drouin wore out his welcome in Tampa Bay and now finds himself having a solid season in Montreal. His play was up and down last season, mostly down but he’s rebounded nicely this season. He’s got 13 goals, and his 33 points rank second to Domi on the team.

The Wings will welcome former forward Tomas Tatar back tonight as he comes in as a member of the Montreal Canadiens. Tatar has netted 14 goals and 31 points on the season and is a plus 8. Where was that consistency with the Wings?

He’s on pace for 28 goals and 62 points, that production was few and far between in Detroit. His high water mark in Detroit was 2014/15 when he notched 29 goals and 56 points. That was the only time in his career he recorded over 50 points in a season.

Montreal captain Shea Weber took a puck to the face last night in a Habs 1-0 loss to the Minnesota Wild. He traveled to Detroit and is expected to play. The good news for Detroit is Carey Price played last night, and Antti Nemi is scheduled to be in goal for Montreal.

Along with their long list of injured defensemen, the Detroit Red Wings will be minus Michael Rasmussen who is out with a minor injury. He is expected to be ready to go for the weekend if he doesn’t have any setbacks. Ehn will draw back into the lineup once again relacing Rasmussen.

The Detroit Red Wings have had a disastrous five-week stretch. They are 2-10-4 since December 1st. They will need to wake up and take it to the Habs early and keep the peddle to the floor. The Habs should start to run out of gas as the game goes on having played yesterday. Detroit needs to take advantage of it.

The last meeting between these two teams ended with a Montreal 7-3 victory. Let’s hope Detroit can settle the score tonight.

The Detroit Red Wings projected lineup:

Tyler Bertuzzi – Dylan Larkin (A) – Gustav Nyquist

Thomas Vanek – Frans Nielsen (A) – Anthony Mantha

Andreas Athanasiou – Luke Glendening – Darren Helm

Christoffer Ehn – Jacob de La Rose – Justin Abdelkader (A)

Niklas Kronwall (A) – Nick Jensen

Dennis Cholowski – Luke Witkowski

Jonathan Ericsson – Filip Hronek

Jimmy Howard

Jonathan Bernier

Healthy Scratch: Martin Frk, Brian Lashoff

Injuries: Mike Green (lower-body), Danny DeKesyer (Hand), Trevor Daley (lower-body), Evgeny Svechnikov (knee) Michael Rasmussen (day-to-day)

dark. Next. The door is swiftly closing on Martin Frk

Game Information:

Detroit Red Wings 16-21-7 vs. Montreal Canadiens 22-16-5
Time: 7:30 EST
Location: Little Caesars Arena, Detroit, MI
TV: Fox Sports Detroit, TSN2, RDS, Fox Sports Go, NHL.TV, ESPN+
Radio: 97.1 The Ticket
OddsShark Odds- Fav. Wings -105

Last 10 meetings Habs- 8-1-1

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