The Detroit Red Wings had a nearly a full house as they went through their morning skate today.
They host the Columbus Blue Jackets at 7:30 tonight (FSD), hoping to build on Saturday's victory against the Carolina Hurricanes. The same lineup will be in tonight, but reinforcements could come as soon as Wednesday, when the Wings play at Columbus.
Defenseman Jonathan Ericsson said he feels "really good" and could return Wednesday. He's pretty much healed from a broken bone in his left wrist. Forward Johan Franzen says his back feels much better, and there's a good chance he could play Wednesday as well.
Franzen says he needs to get his conditioning back after being out 10 days. An MRI revealed no damage, other than Franzen's hilarious take: "We did an MRI. Nothing out of the ordinary. Just looked like an old hockey player's back. Nothing extreme."
Goaltender Jimmy Howard celebrated his 28th birthday by taking shots for a third straight day. He said his groin really isn't bothering what movements he can do, but with the playoffs so close, nobody wants to rush him back. He's looking at Friday's game against Nashville.
"Right now, it's more about getting healthy," Howard said. "First and foremost, it's about getting out there and not thinking about it or anything like that, just playing. We're taking a little bit different route this time around, with trying to strengthen it a little bit more."
All this leaves Ty Conklin starting tonight, with a defense of Lidstrom-White, Kronwall-Stuart, Quincey-Kindl. Up front, the anticipated lines are:
Bertuzzi-Datsyuk-Nyquist
Filppula-Zetterberg-Hudler
Miller-Abdelkader-Cleary
Holmstrom-Emmerton-Mursak
The Blue Jackets come to town having lost, 6-3, at home Sunday to Edmonton. There isn't a worse team in the NHL than Columbus, which has a league-low 24 victories and 55 points. Extra important for the Wings, then, to not take this as a granted "W" since they woke up this morning having been bumped from fourth place in the Western Conference by Nashville, which put a 6-1 beat-down on Chicago Sunday.
"We'd like to get healthy; we'd like to get playing good going into the playoffs," Detroit coach Mike Babcock said. "In saying all that, I thought our club played well the other night. We were down, 4-1, at one time and yet I still thought we played well till that time. It was a good win for our team.
"We play another game here today where we've got to find a way to play well. It's like anything, you want to be confident going into the playoffs, and in order to do that, you need wins."
They host the Columbus Blue Jackets at 7:30 tonight (FSD), hoping to build on Saturday's victory against the Carolina Hurricanes. The same lineup will be in tonight, but reinforcements could come as soon as Wednesday, when the Wings play at Columbus.
Defenseman Jonathan Ericsson said he feels "really good" and could return Wednesday. He's pretty much healed from a broken bone in his left wrist. Forward Johan Franzen says his back feels much better, and there's a good chance he could play Wednesday as well.
Franzen says he needs to get his conditioning back after being out 10 days. An MRI revealed no damage, other than Franzen's hilarious take: "We did an MRI. Nothing out of the ordinary. Just looked like an old hockey player's back. Nothing extreme."
Goaltender Jimmy Howard celebrated his 28th birthday by taking shots for a third straight day. He said his groin really isn't bothering what movements he can do, but with the playoffs so close, nobody wants to rush him back. He's looking at Friday's game against Nashville.
"Right now, it's more about getting healthy," Howard said. "First and foremost, it's about getting out there and not thinking about it or anything like that, just playing. We're taking a little bit different route this time around, with trying to strengthen it a little bit more."
All this leaves Ty Conklin starting tonight, with a defense of Lidstrom-White, Kronwall-Stuart, Quincey-Kindl. Up front, the anticipated lines are:
Bertuzzi-Datsyuk-Nyquist
Filppula-Zetterberg-Hudler
Miller-Abdelkader-Cleary
Holmstrom-Emmerton-Mursak
The Blue Jackets come to town having lost, 6-3, at home Sunday to Edmonton. There isn't a worse team in the NHL than Columbus, which has a league-low 24 victories and 55 points. Extra important for the Wings, then, to not take this as a granted "W" since they woke up this morning having been bumped from fourth place in the Western Conference by Nashville, which put a 6-1 beat-down on Chicago Sunday.
"We'd like to get healthy; we'd like to get playing good going into the playoffs," Detroit coach Mike Babcock said. "In saying all that, I thought our club played well the other night. We were down, 4-1, at one time and yet I still thought we played well till that time. It was a good win for our team.
"We play another game here today where we've got to find a way to play well. It's like anything, you want to be confident going into the playoffs, and in order to do that, you need wins."
