Detroit Red Wings Back Home Versus the Minnesota Wild Before Deadline

The Detroit Red Wings are back in Detroit for a 2-game stretch before the Trade Deadline. They face the Wild tonight as the trade deadline quickly approaches and the future of certain Red Wings players hangs in the balance.

Coming off a 5-4 OT loss to the Chicago Blackhawks on a tic-tac-toe goal by Patrick Kane, the Detroit Red Wings are back at home against the Minnesota Wild tonight. The Red Wings are looking to snap a three-game losing streak where the Wild look to get another win after snapping a five-game losing streak. The Red Wings are 4-4-2 in their last ten contests and the Wild are 2-5-3 in their last ten games heading into Friday night’s game.

The Wild are looking to get another win, with Jared Spurgeon on a hot streak lately with 5 points in his last 5 games played. Besides Spurgeon, the Wild’s leading point scorers are Zach Parise with 23 goals, 26 assists for 49 points with both Ryan Suter and Mikael Granlund having 34 assists. When it comes to the power play and penalty kill percentages.

The wild hold a power play rank of 15th with their 20.4% conversion rate, and for their penalty kill they are 14th in the NHL with an 80.8% kill rate. Looking back on the Wild versus the Red Wings, the Red Wings have walked away with three out of the last five games between the Wild and them.

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The Wild’s injury report contains Victor Rask (lower body), Matt Hendricks (lower body), Matthew Dumba (Upper Body), and Mikko Koivu (Torn ACL) which is just a bit worse than the Detroit Red Wings. The Redwings are currently without Evgeny Svechnikov (knee surgery) and Jimmy Howard (illness) for Friday night’s contest. The Red Wings called up goalie Harri Sateri to serve as tonight’s backup, sending down Christoffer Ehn to the Grand Rapids Griffins.

With the trade deadline looming, the Red Wings are supposed to be sellers with the likenesses of Gustav Nyquist, Jimmy Howard, Luke Glendening. However, Howard’s trade stock has decreased immensely after a stretch of bad play, Nyquist is still having a career year and Glendening has gotten some interest.

The Red Wings began their deadline moves by trading Nick Jensen to the Washington Capitals and a fifth-round pick for defenseman Madison Bowey and a 2020 second round pick. The Wild already started their deadline deals by sending Charlie Coyle to the Boston Bruins for Ryan Donato and a draft pick. The Wild are still in the hunt for a wildcard spot barely holding on, but trading away Coyle was not the best for their chances of holding onto the wildcard spot.

Key Stat: Going into Friday’s contest with the Wild, Dylan Larkin has a total of 82 goals and 116 assists for a total of 198 points in his career. That puts him just shy of 200 points over his NHL career, which is something to keep an eye on heading into Friday’s game.

Probable Goalies: Jonathan Bernier (Detroit) 3.31 GAA | 0.898 SV% and Alex Stalock (Minnesota) 3.08 GAA | 0.890 SV%

Opposing Blog: Gone Puck Wild

TV/Radio: Fox Sports Detroit, NHL Network

Location: Little Caesars Arena, Detroit, Michigan

Time: 7:30 pm EST

Odds: Detroit -110

Prediction: The Wild are coming off a win that snapped a five-game losing streak, the Red Wings are trying to snap a three-game losing streak of their own. The Red Wings have been playing decent, despite tough adversity in the form of unlucky bounces, and Howard’s struggles. Look for the Red Wings top line to capitalize on opportunities and squash any momentum the Wild have after snapping the losing streak.