Red Wings-Penguins morning skate Tweets: Kane, Red Wings hope to extend winning streak vs. young Penguins lineup

The Detroit Red Wings will host the Pittsburgh Penguins this evening at Little Caesars Arena (7 PM EDT on DetroitRedWings.com and PittsburghPenguins.com).

The Penguins are sending a particularly “green” lineup to Detroit (no Crosby, no Letang, no Malkin, but former Wolverine Rutger McGroaty will play tonight) as their main lineup will be playing on Sunday for a Kraft Hockeyville game in Sudbury, Ontario, so the Wings will look to build upon their win over Chicago on Friday night by taking this young Penguins team seriously.

The Red Wings’ “game day” group took to the ice just before 10:30 AM at Little Caesars Arena; the non-game-day group usually skates after the game-day group at the adjacent BELFOR Training Center.

It appears that, per the Hockey News’s Sam Stockton, Patrick Kane will skate on a line with Dylan Larkin tonight; Ville Husso is scheduled to start and play the first 2 periods, with Sebastian Cossa relieving Husso in the 3rd period.

I’m wondering whether the Wings might go 11-and-7 this evening, given what MLive’s Ansar Khan is reporting:

It also looks like Marco Kasper’s going to get another look as a net-front player on the power play tonight:

For what it’s worth, I’m still baffled as to why the Wings are playing 8 exhibition games over the course of 11 nights, but I guess that the auditions work for coach Lalonde. That, and it makes the team money, because they get 4 home dates where regular-season ticket prices are paid for exhibition hockey.

It didn’t used to be that way. My first game, on September 22, 1991, cost something like $11 per seat in the upper bowl of Joe Louis Arena.

If you didn’t follow the Penguins’ formatting of their lineup, the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review’s Seth Rorabaugh posted it in easier-to-read terms:

Forwards — Noel Acciari, Corey Andonovski, Emil Bemstrom, Tristan Broz, Lars Eller, Avery Hayes, Jimmy Huntington, Boko Imama, Rutger McGroarty, Drew O’Connor, Vasily Ponomarev, Jesse Puljujarvi, Valtteri Puustinen

Defensemen — Sebastian Aho, Ryan Graves, Mac Hollowell, John Ludvig, Owen Pickering, Ryan Shea, Jack St. Ivany

Goaltenders — Tristan Jarry, Filip Larsson

Goaltender Filip Larsson was a Red Wings prospect, but the 26-year-old returned to Sweden for several seasons before the Penguins signed him as a free agent.

Pittsburgh also took to the ice at their practice facility around the time that the Red Wings hit the ice in Detroit–if you are unfamiliar with the practice, teams usually “fly out” to games same-day during the exhibition season, instead of staying overnight on the road:

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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!