It’s Third Jersey Night, y’alls!
In what will hopefully be a less sickness-addled Game Thread write-up, let’s take a look at tonight’s matchup, shall we?
Detroit put a good win up on St. Louis last night in Motown, despite blowing a 2-0 lead (St. Louis came back to take a 3-2 lead before Detroit was able to score two more and add an empty netter). They used the Power Play, scoring two PPGs and adding a third on a delayed call. Henrik Zetterberg was a monster, with a hatty.
So, you know, we might want to play some tighter defense, and our PK will again have to be good.
The Jackets have been struggling to start games off with the right energy and effort level, and St. Louis made them pay for it on Thursday. Steve Mason will get the start after some solid work in relief on Thursday, and if the team needs energy at the outset they can always put Jared Boll and Jordin Tootoo out there together again.
Columbus enters game two with Tim Erixon and David Savard on defense, so hopefully some time has enabled them to gell with their pairing mates. Look for some shakeup on the blue line during the Power Play, as Mark Letestu got some work in the morning skate with James Wisniewski, and Jack Johnson spent time with Fedor Tyutin. Columbus has scored PPGs in each of their past two games to help get that conversion rate climbing again.
Let’s just do our best to make sure the crowd is strong, and that we can drown out the Wings fans.