IR Movement for Monday

A few interesting developments from today's practise.

- Jimmy Howard and Jonathan Ericsson are ready to go for Thursday's game against Calgary. This means Doug Janik will be sent down to Grand Rapids. But what about Joey MacDonald you ask?

- After a solid game from Ozzie against the Preds, he hurt his groin in practise and is expected to be out up to 3 weeks. So MacDonald will stay with Detroit to be Howard's back-up.

- Rafalski is skating again, and is hopeful to be back in the line-up in a week or so.

So the question becomes, who will sit for Rafalski?

The two most obvious candidates would have to be Ericsson and Kindl. Jakub Kindl has been solid for the Wings and seems to have enjoyed his time on the powerplay. While it hasn't resulted in much offense, I do feel he has shown some promise to be a D-man that can chip in with some points at times. That said, he still has to become more polished and needs to work on his decision making. In most games, there has been at least one example of bad decision-making from Kindl -- but that is a symptom if his limited experience and something that will surely improve with ice time.

Ericsson has been injured for some time so he has no recent play to judge. This next week will probably be an audition of sorts for Big E, but I feel fairly certain that regardless of his play, Kindl will have to sit in the press box upon Rafalski's return.

Why?

Since he cracked the line-up a few years ago, Ericsson has always been given the benefit of the doubt and every opportunity to excel. On this occasion, I believe once again, Ericsson will need to play himself out of a spot rather than have it taken away by Kindl. That could well happen too. We'll just wait and see. It's a great decision for a coach to have to make however -- Ericsson and Kindl as #6 and #7 defensemen gives a very true reflection of the depth this team has.