The Setup: Red Wings vs. Bruins – 11/3/09

OK then. Sorry to leave everyone hanging after getting you all riled up about Jimmah Howard and his abilities as an NHL goaltender, but I had to pack up all of my frustration and thoughts to move to my new apartment this weekend. As you can see, I got zero writing done during that time which means I have a ton of catching up to do.

The whole moving thing also prevented me from catching much of the game against Calgary the other night, but all the coverage I saw makes it sound like the Wings played pretty darn well, despite not having Ericsson out there. Which reminds me: I put a tweet out a couple of weeks ago about perhaps benching Ericsson in favor of Meech/Lebda, just to change it up a bit. I’m not saying that it mattered (since I haven’t seen), but it’s interesting that (by most accounts) our best game of the year occurs without Jonny in the lineup.

Anyways, I’ll be working throughout today to get updated “By the Numbers” and CSSI posts up for the Edmonton and Calgary games. Given the lack of timeliness combined with tonight’s game, they will be much shorter and won’t have alot of analysis (if any). Basically, the goal is to just get all of the numbers updated so that I can focus on this week’s games.

Sound good? Awesome.

Beantown Bruins Preview

The Bruins hit the Joe tonight for the lone regular season matchup between these two teams, who many believed were favorites to square off for the Satnley Cup next summer. Needless to say, neither team has really blown the doors of the joint, and both teams are struggling with putting together wins on a consistent basis. While Detroit’s season has been all over the board, the Bruins have been alternating wins and losses in every game they have played. If the trend holds, they should win tonight. Lame.

No “Behind Enemy Lines” tonight, but expect that back in time for Thursday’s game against the Sharks.

Other Miscellanea

• Rafalski is out tonight with the flu, as is Jonny E. The Wings have remedied this by calling up Doug Janik, who will more than likely pair up with Derek Meech.
• Osgood gets the nod tonight, and it probably wouldn’t be a bad idea for him to follow up a solid performance against Calgary with, ya know, another solid performance. Boston will probably come out strong right off the hop, so Osgood needs to be on his game.
• For all of the chatter about the Wings dismal start to the season and the dynasty being “over”, the Wings find themselves entering tonight’s game two games behind the Blackhawks, with a game still in hand. As far as the West? A WHOPPING 4.5 games back of the Avs with only 70 games to play.

Lines

Forwards

Bertuzzi-Datsyuk-Holmstrom

Cleary-Zetterberg-Williams

Draper-Helm-Eaves

Leino-Abdelkader-Maltby

Defense

Lidstrom-Kronwall

Stuart-Lebda

Meech-Janik

Goaltender

Osgood

Puck drops at 7:30. Game is on VERSUS. See you postgame.

GO WINGS!

Tags: Boston Bruins, Brian Rafalski, Doug Janik, Jonathan Ericsson