Red Wings-Panthers morning skate Tweets and articles: Sateri starts for Panthers; Wings don’t skate

The Detroit Red Wings will battle the Florida Panthers this evening (7:00 PM EST on FSD Plus due to a Pistons-Heat game at LCA/FS Florida/97.1 FM).

The Wings hope to push their winning streak to 3 games as they tangle with an opponent that’s vexed them in the 21-22-and-6 Panthers, who sit only 2 points behind the Wings in the Wild Card and Eastern Conference standings.

Florida comes into tonight’s game having won 2 straight games, including a 4-2 decision over Buffalo on Thursday, and the Panthers have won with a “green” goalie, as noted by STATS’ Wings-Panthers preview:

The Florida Panthers return home to face the Detroit Red Wings on Saturday night at the BB&T Center with a modest two-game win streak. It is Florida’s longest surge since winning five straight from Dec. 19 to Dec. 30.

Both of Florida’s wins during the current streak happened on the road.

Both of them came with rookie Harri Sateri in goal. He waited a decade from the time he was drafted in the fourth round by the San Jose Sharks until Tuesday, when he finally collected his first NHL victory.

“There are a lot of good things happening here,” Panthers coach Bob Boughner told the media after Thursday’s 4-2 win in Buffalo over the Sabres. “It’s only two wins. We’ve got to keep clawing our way back into (the playoff race).”

Florida (21-22-6) is still a long shot for the postseason, but Sateri has quickly become a great story.

The 28-year-old native of Finland was promoted from the Panthers’ Springfield Thunderbirds American Hockey League affiliate on Dec. 6, coinciding with a right-leg injury suffered by future Hall of Fame goalie Roberto Luongo.

Sateri, who has also played in Russia’s KHL and Finland’s Liiga, sat the bench for about a month as the Panthers rode “1A goalie” James Reimer, who made 19 of 20 starts during one stretch.

The game preview continues, and it’s worth your time.

The Panthers took to the ice at the BB&T Center just after 10:30 AM, and FloridaPanthers.com’s Jameson Olive reported in:

The Sun-Sentinel’s Matthew DeFranks also weighed in:

And the Panthers posted the obligatory, “We’re here!” Tweet:

I think it’s kind of neat that the Panthers’ TV play-by-play guy gets into the Twitter game, too:

Okay, I think that’s enough Panthers Twitter for one morning! I’ll be brief from here on out.

But wait, there’s intrigue at the Panthers’ skate!

However, per Olive:

Sateri back in net tonight

Boughner going to keep rolling with the hot hand.

Boughner said he got “great reports” from both James Reimer and Roberto Luongo today, adding that it was the first time that both have felt great. They could return to practice as early as Monday, but either way they’ll “definitely get more active next week.”

Fun fact: the Wings drafted Bob Boughner in the legendary 1989 draft, but Boughner never played a game for Detroit.

Anyway, here come the post-Panthers-skate comment Tweets:

“We’ve got to build off of our last few games… We’ve got a good test tonight against Detroit.” -Keith Yandle – at BB&T Center

“It’s going to be a big game tonight.” -Trocheck on tonight’s matchup against Detroit.

“Coming in to tonight, it’s important that we play the way we played against the Islanders.” -Mike Matheson

Also, per DeFranks…

Boughner said the #FlaPanthers mulled playing Sam Montembeault in Buffalo, but “Harri had such a good game on the island, we wanted to continue that.”

And Olive:

Boughner said the team considered starting 21-year-old rookie Samuel Montembeault in Buffalo, but decided to go with Sateri after a great game against the Islanders. “Right now, as much as we’d like to give Sammy a game, I think Harri’s deserved a chance to start again.”

My birthday is now almost always just before or just after the Superbowl (Sunday would have been a nice day to celebrate my 40th birthday, which happens on Monday, but my friends are understandably “busy” tomorrow), and I’m not a football person to begin with, so you’ll have to forgive me for not feeling all warm and fuzzy for Superbowl Weekend…but I will admit that the look on Keith Yandle’s face here is hilarious:

Waiting for the Red Wings’ morning skate on a back-to-back game is hit-or-miss for two reasons:

  1. Sometimes the Wings skate and sometimes they don’t;
  2.  Sometimes the beat writers make it to the skate from their hotel and sometimes they sleep in because a back-to-back skate is almost always optional skate.

It appears that we’re going with #1 and the “sometimes they don’t” option today. Coach Blashill will probably speak with the media prior to the game, usually around 5 PM ET. He’ll reveal his starting goaltender then.

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George Malik

My name is George Malik, and I'm the Malik Report's editor/blogger/poster. I have been blogging about the Red Wings since 2006, and have worked with MLive and Kukla's Korner. Thank you for reading!

2 thoughts on “Red Wings-Panthers morning skate Tweets and articles: Sateri starts for Panthers; Wings don’t skate”

    1. I’ll grant you that the only interesting part of this from a Wings perspective is the Panthers’ lineup for tonight, but I followed the Panthers’ morning skate assuming that the entry would be balanced out with Wings coverage. No Wings news =/= me throwing the work in a dumpster.

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