Game Preview: Don’t Give a Damn About...
Columbus travels to face the OTHER team up north
Man, screw Detroit. All y’all. The Tigers are aging and overpaid. The Lions drove 2 of the all-time greatest players to retire early. The Pistons are irrelevant. Detroit gave a key to the city to Saddam Hussein. (Seriously) JT Barrett got that first down fair and square.
If FFMorgan shows up in the comments today, be sure to give him the full amount of good-natured shit he deserves. (You’re a good sport, kiddo, and we do enjoy your company all but these 3 days of the season)
Columbus is coming off of a much deserved 3 day break. (They spent one of those days delivering Meals on Wheels to the community) They’re riding a 6 game point streak and look to continue that with a tough Eastern Conference road test. No lineup changes expected on our end. Zach Werenski’s grandfather passed away this week but he will rejoin the team for this game. Despite being away from the team, John Tortorella says Werenski called the training staff and asked what the workouts were each day, so he could do the same routine by himself at home. How amazing is this kid?
Sergei Bobrovsky will start in goal, of course.
Detroit has been hampered by injuries so far this year. Fortunately for them, Jimmy Howard, Andreas Athanasiou and Alexey Marchenko have all returned to practice. Darren Helm, Tyler Bertuzzi, Brendan Smith and Justin Abdelkader all remain out. Despite those setbacks, Detroit is riding a point streak of their own, with points earned in 7 of their last 8 games. This includes two extra-time wins this week in Brooklyn and Winnipeg.
PROJECTED LINEUPS
| Brandon Saad | Alexander Wennberg | Nick Foligno |
| Boone Jenner | Brandon Dubinsky | Cam Atkinson |
| Scott Hartnell | William Karlsson | Josh Anderson |
| Matt Calvert | Lukas Sedlak | Sam Gagner |
| Zach Werenski | Seth Jones |
| Jack Johnson | David Savard |
| Ryan Murray | Markus Nutivaara |
| Sergei Bobrovsky |
| Curtis McElhinney |
| Anthony Mantha | ZETTERBEARD | Tomas Tatar |
| Dylan Larkin | Frans Nielsen | Luke Glendening |
| Gustav Nyquist | Riley Sheahan | Thomas Vanek |
| Andreas Athanasiou | Steve Ott | Tomas Jurco |
| Danny Dekeyser | Mike Green |
| Jonathan Ericsson | Xavier Ouellet |
| Niklas Kronwall | Alexey Marchenko |
| Petr Mrazek |
| Jimmy Howard |