The Red Wings and Canadiens held morning skates ahead of tonight’s game at Little Caesars Arena, and it appears that Alex Nedeljkovic will start opposite Jake Allen this evening (7 PM EST start on Bally Sports Detroit Plus/City TV/Sportsnet East/TVA Sports/97.1 FM). After the morning skate, both Michael Rasmussen and coach Jeff Blashill spoke with the media, and here are the videos of their availabilities:
Meanwhile, the Habs were without Jonathan Drouin at their morning skate. Drouin suffers from (post-concussive?) headaches caused by taking a puck to the head in the last meeting between Detroit and Montreal (a 3-0 loss to Montreal on November 2nd):
Jonathan Drouin n’est pas de l’entraînement matinal @CanadiensMTL @TVASports— Renaud Lavoie (@renlavoietva) November 13, 2021
Hockeytown pic.twitter.com/aZmVql3WdY— TSN 690 Radio (@TSN690) November 13, 2021
Les trios et duos du CH à Detroit. Jonathan Drouin n’est pas sur la glace du Little Caesars.
Hoffman-Suzuki-Toffoli
Anderson-Dvorak-Gallagher
Lehkonen-Evans-Armia
Pezzetta-Poehling-Belzile
Chiarot-Petry
Kulak-Savard
Romanov-Wideman
Les extras: Brooks, Niku et Norlinder— J-F Chaumont (@JFChaumontJDM) November 13, 2021
Jake Allen obtiendra le départ face aux Wings.— J-F Chaumont (@JFChaumontJDM) November 13, 2021
So Jake Allen starts, and Drouin is out.
The Red Wings’ website’s Brett McWethy just posted a game preview as well:
The Red Wings and Montreal Canadiens will play for the third and final time this season on Saturday night from Little Caesars Arena in The District Detroit. Puck drop is set for 7 p.m., with broadcast coverage on Bally Sports Detroit and the Red Wings Radio Network.
Montreal has taken care of business in the first two matchups between the Original Six and Atlantic Division rivals, defeating Detroit, 6-1, on Oct. 23, and recording a 3-0 shutout on Nov. 2. Both games took place at the Bell Centre.
According to Red Wings coach Jeff Blashill, Detroit fell short in those contests for different reasons.
The Red Wings would prefer not to repeat the performance they had just 11 days ago on the road.
“They were probably a little bit different games,” Blashill said. “The last game, I thought we played poorly. It was the worst game, I think, we’ve played all season in terms of how we actually played, in terms of our energy. We were a step behind the whole night, and it was an egg for us. It was just one of those nights.”
