Tonight at 7:30 p.m. the Detroit Red Wings (15-9-8, 38 points) and Tampa Bay Lightning (17-10-3, 34 points) hit the ice at BB&T Center for the second of five meetings this season live from the Joe Louis Arena. The game can be live streamed here. Detroit fans can hear all of the bone-crunching action on 97.1 The Ticket while Tampa Bay fans can do the same on 970 WFLA.
Both teams are coming off losses as Detroit continues to try and work through injuries while Tampa Bay blew a couple of leads in its latest loss. The last time these two teams met, the Lightning topped the Red Wings 3-2 in Detroit on Nov. 9 in overtime.
The Lightning lost 6-5 to the Washington Capitals Tuesday in a shootout after blowing three leads, one which was 3-0.
"This is a game we should have won. We had that game a bunch of times and just couldn't close it," Martin St. Louis told The Tampa Tribune. "Everybody in the building knows where the puck is going, [Alex Ovechkin], that's his shot. Obviously we didn't do a good enough job of taking it away from him."
St. Louis leads the Lightning with 30 points off of 13 goals and 17 assists while Valtteri Filppula is second on the team since Steven Stamkos (14-9-23) is sidelined with a broken fibia, and has 10 tallies and 10 helpers for 20 points.
The Red Wings also lost in a shootout Tuesday when they were edged out 3-2 by the Florida Panthers. To make things worse, goaltender Jimmy Howard was injured in practice on Wednesday.
"Howie tweaked a knee," general manager Ken Holland told the Detroit Free Press. "He's going for tests. We don't know how serious it is. Obviously, he can't play, so we called up [Petr] Mrazek."
With Howard sidelined, Jonas Gustavsson is set to start and he is 8-1-1 with a 2.03 goals-against average and a .930 save percentage. The probable starter for the Lightning is Ben Bishop, who is 15-5-2 with a 2.11 GAA and a .929 save percentage.
Bishop will look to stop a Red Wings lineup that is led by Henrik Zetterberg, who has 30 points off of 11 goals and 19 assists while Pavel Datsyuk returned from a concussion Tuesday and has lit the lamp 13 times and added 12 helpers for 25 points and Daniel Alfredsson has four goals in his last nine games for a total of seven goals with 16 assists for 23 points.
Both teams look to bounce back from losses when the Lightning and the Red Wings faceoff live at the Joe Louis Arena tonight in Detroit.
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