Out of the frying pan and into the fire. The Flames traveled all night after the pasting in Montreal and arrived in Detroit around 4am this morning. Playing the Red Wings in the Joe is never an ideal situation for the Flames; they've lost their last 7 games in Motown. So ending a road trip on the second night of a back-to-back is less than encouraging.
With the loss nearly guaranteed, I'll be more interested in seeing whether Keenan can overcome his own damaging proclivities in the face of a strong opponent. Will Kipper play his Nth game in a row? Will Bertuzzi get more time in the top 6? Does Boyd get promoted (for more than few shifts) after being one of the consistently effective forwards against the Habs? My eyes will be on how the game is coached rather than how it's played I think.
Anyways, Detroit is having trouble keeping pucks out their net (due almost entirely to poor goaltending), but they are still elite in almost every way. They literally have at least one difference maker on each of their first three forward lines:
Holmstrom-DATSYUK-Cleary
Filpulla-ZETTERBERG-HOSSA
Hudler-FRANZEN-Samuelsson
There's no sheltering anyone against the Red Wings. If you have an obvious weakness, it will probably be exploited. Pardy, Sarich, Aucoin and Bertuzzi all make me understandably nervous heading into tonight therefore. As such, I think the team's humble goal this evening should be to at least try to keep the score close.
Prediction - Detroit 5, Calgary 2. Phaneuf and Moss for the Flames. Hossa, Zetterberg, Lidstrom, Cleary and Franzen for the Wings.
UPDATE - according to Inside the Flames, Babcock has re-re-shuffled his lines back to their original state. So now they look like:
Holmstrom-Datsyuk-Hossa
Zetterberg-Franzen-Samuelsson
Hudler-Filppula-Cleary
Maltby-Draper-Kopecky
Yeah. That makes me feel a whole lot better. Which Flames trio takes on the Datsyuk/Hossa line? Who gets "left with" the Zetterberg/Franzen match-up?
...
If Conklin isn't awful tonight, this is going to get ugly.
