Wild Hope to Gain Ground in Detroit

The Red Wings have not seen such consistent necessity to win outside the playoffs in so many years, the younger Wings' fans have never experienced such a thing.

After a costly loss to the Flames on Tuesday night booted the Red Wings from the top-8 in the West, Detroit hopes to bounce back tonight with a win over Minnesota at the Joe. In response to the loss to Calgary, Mike Babcock has done some minor line shuffling putting Henrik Zetterberg with Valtteri Filppula and Daniel Cleary, in hopes of seeing some much-needed secondary scoring from the trio.

Jimmy Howard will make his 14th consecutive start while Niklas Backstrom is expected to mind the net for the Wild.

Earlier in the season, Detroit and Minnesota split two games at the Xcel Energy Center, 4-3 (SO)Detroit on January 21 and 5-2 Minnesota on January 27.

Other previews:
Winging it in Motown
Sporting News
Unconnected Red Wings Blog

Detroit 4, Ottawa 1

The Sens were Red Hot... that is, until they met a determined Detroit team.

The recent form of each team had been at almost polar opposite, with Ottawa winning 13 of their past 14 and Detroit riding a 4-game losing streak. One the ice however, it seemed the reverse was true. From the opening face-off, the Wings looked like a driven team, unwavering in their quest to snap a costly losing skid.

Kirk Maltby got the scoring underway just over nine minutes into the first period, and Pavel Datsyuk consolidated the lead, making it 2-0 exactly seven minutes later. Ottawa outshot Detroit 10-8 in the period, despite the deficit on the scoreboard.

About a third of the way through the second frame, the Senators looked to be building momentum with a goal from Peter Regin, by virtue of a nice play by Alexei Kovalev, and looked to be close to tying it up. A familiar nervousness seemed to come over the crowd at the Joe Louis Arena until Daniel Cleary tipped in a powerplay goal to restore the two-goal lead for Detroit.

The third period was the seal of a steadfast squad as Detroit gave Ottawa almost no chance to get back into the game, outshooting them 16-7 and topping off the win with an empty-net goal from Johan Franzen giving them the 4-1 final result.

The open-netter gave Franzen his 2nd goal since his return totalling three points in the three games. Jimmy Howard was exceptional with 29 saves while his teammates amassed 40 shots in total.

This game was the last before the Olympic break for the Red Wings.