Red Wings-Blue Jackets morning skate Tweets II: Wings’ media availability (no tribute-“A”-ries) and CBJ’s skate (same lineup)

The Morning Skate Tweets post was quite busy ahead of tonight’s game between Detroit and Columbus (7:30 PM EDT on FSD/FS Ohio/97.1 FM), so here’s a second post to summarize the Wings’ post-morning skate media comments and Columbus’ morning skate:


Again, per MLive’s Ansar Khan:

morning skate. Looks like D pairs will be: DeKeyser-Cholowski Daley-Sulak Hicketts-Hronek Jensen appears to be healthy scratch. If that’s the case, 5 Wings will make NHL debut vs. ⁦⁩ Rasmussen, Cholowski, Ehn, Sulak, Hronek.

Hronek and Daley rotating on a power-play unit with Larkin, Nyquist, Bertuzzi and Rasmussen (net front). Other unit has Vanek, Nielsen, Athanasiou, Mantha (net front) and Cholowski.

lines have been the same last three days: Nyquist-Larkin-Mantha Abdelkader-Athanasiou-Vanek Bertuzzi-Nielsen-Rasmussen Helm-Ehn-Glendening (who will take faceoffs despite playing wing) Frk and Witkowski will be the scratches.

After the morning skate, the Detroit News’s Ted Kulfan raised an eyebrow…

DennisCholowski said, “Hi”:


As did Joe Hicketts…

Then Blashill spoke…

The Free Press’s Helene St. James posted a video of Libor Sulak’s game-day remarks…

 

WDIV’s David Bartkowiak Jr. also posted a game preview and a roster summary:

ABOUT THE BLUE JACKETS (2017-2018: 45-30-7):

Columbus will also be without top six defenseman Ryan Murray (lower-body), and Zach Werenski will lead the blue line after recording 16 goals last season. Center Riley Nash and wing Anthony Duclair were added to the forward corps and the Blue Jackets hope young players such as center Pierre-Luc Dubois can take a step forward. Goalie Sergei Bobrovsky returns after another strong season in which he posted 37 wins along with a 2.42 goals against average and .921 save percentage.

ABOUT THE RED WINGS (2017-18: 30-39-13):

Defensemen Joe Hicketts and Filip Hronek were assigned to the American Hockey League but will likely be back because of the injuries and two other rookie blue liners – Libor Sulak and Dennis Cholowski – could be in the lineup for opening night. “Cholowski showed me more than I realized he had on the power play with the poise and some of the plays he made,” coach Jeff Blashill told the Detroit Free Press of the former first-round pick. Center Dylan Larkin returns with a brand new five-year contract after leading the team with 63 points (16 goals) while Anthony Mantha hopes to move forward after a career-best 24 goals in 2017-18.

OVERTIME

1. Bobrovsky played in a career-high 65 games last season and is 12-4-1 (3-0 in 2017-18) against the Red Wings with a 1.98 GAA.

2. Detroit F Michael Rasmussen, the ninth overall pick in 2017, is expected to make his NHL debut Thursday.

3. Red Wings G Jimmy Howard returns after an up and down season (22-27-9, 2.85 GAA) and G Jonathan Bernier was brought in as a free agent.

PREDICTION: Red Wings 4, Blue Jackets 3

On Columbus’ side of the ice…


Game lines, per Craig Merz’s game preview:

Blue Jackets projected lines

Artemi Panarin — Pierre-Luc Dubois — Cam Atkinson

Nick Foligno — Alexander Wennberg — Oliver Bjorkstrand

Boone Jenner — Brandon Dubinsky — Josh Anderson

Anthony Duclair — Riley Nash — Sonny Milano

Zach Werenski — David Savard

Ryan Murray — Markus Nutivaara

Dean Kukan — Adam Clendening

Joonas Korpisalo

Sergei Bobrovsky

Scratched: F Markus Hannikainen, F Lukas Sedlak, D Gabriel Carlsson

Injured: D Scott Harrington (upper body), D Seth Jones (knee)

Update: St. James posted a clip of Dylan Larkin as well:

 

Ditto for WXYZ’s Brad Galli;

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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, when MLive hired me to work their SlapShots blog, and I joined Kukla's Korner in 2011 as The Malik Report. I'm starting The Malik Report as a stand-alone site, hoping that having my readers fund the website is indeed the way to go to build a better community and create better content.