Post-morning skate Tweets: Lyon starts + catch-up posts, Wings-Penguins previews

The Detroit Red Wings held their morning skate ahead of tonight’s game vs. the Pittsburgh Penguins (8 PM EST start on FanDuel SportsNet Detroit/Sportsnet Pittsburgh/97.1 FM), with Alex Lyon slated to start and the lineup static for now.

According to the Penguins’ website’s game preview, Detroit’s in for a tough task tonight:

Pittsburgh enters tonight’s game with points in 13 of its last 15 contests against Detroit (10-2-3). They’ve scored four or more goals in 11 of the 15 games. The Penguins are 5-2-0 in their last seven visits to Little Caesars Arena.

…

Pittsburgh has been one of the hottest teams in the NHL over the last month, going 10-4-1 in its last 15 games.

During this 13-game stretch, the Penguins top line of Sidney Crosby, Bryan Rust and Rickard Rakell have dominated, combining for 22 goals and 57 points.

Bryan Rust has been one of the hottest players in the NHL during Pittsburgh’s 10-4-1 stretch, recording a team-high (tied) 19 points (10G-9A) in 15 games. His 19 points are 13th in the league since Nov. 27, and only Jake Guentzel (11) and Brayden Point (11) have more goals than his 10.

Rust is one point shy of becoming the 15th player in franchise history to record 400 points. Rust, who was selected in the third round (80th overall) in the 2010 NHL Draft, is looking to become the 20th member of his draft class to reach 400 points. Over the last five seasons, only three members of his draft class have accumulated more points than Rust.

Assistant Coach David Quinn has Pittsburgh’s power play firing on all cylinders after going 2-for-2 on Sunday against New York. The Penguins rank fifth in the NHL in power-play percentage (25.9%) and going back to Nov. 30, no team has had a better success rate than Pittsburgh’s 35.9%.

The Penguins have scored a whopping six power-play goals in their last nine opportunities (66.7%) over their last three games.

Here are tonight’s game notes:

gn-2024-12-31-0593-PIT@DETDownload

Also of Red Wings-related note this morning:

The Athletic’s Scott Wheeler wrote a very thorough profile of Red Wings prospect Jesse Kiiskinen;

Detroit Hockey Now’s Bob Duff doubts that the Red Wings can make a playoff run, and Duff also wrote an article about Axel Sandin Pellikka;

The Free Press’s Helene St. James posted an article discussing the Red Wings’ need for secondary scoring;

And MLive’s Ansar Khan posted a short Red Wings-Penguins preview:

The Red Wings will try to build on Sunday’s 4-2 victory over Washington, Todd McLellan’s first win in his second game as coach. They’ll put behind them a calendar year in which they failed to earn a playoff spot last season due to an 8-13-3 finish and fired coach Derek Lalonde last Thursday due to a disappointing start this season.

After allowing four or more goals in six consecutive games and seven-of-eight, the Red Wings tightened up defensively against the Capitals and got a 25-save performance from Alex Lyon.

Lucas Raymond, Alex DeBrincat and Patrick Kane have provided much of their scoring lately. Dylan Larkin (no goals, 10 assists in 15 games) and Vladimir Tarasenko (no goals, two assists in 12 games) are looking to get untracked.

The Penguins are 10-4-1 in their past 15 following a rough start. Sidney Crosby leads the team with 40 points, including 10 goals.

These teams have split two games — Pittsburgh spoiled Detroit’s season-opener 6-3 on Oct. 10 and the Red Wings prevailed 3-2 on Simon Edvinsson’s overtime goal Nov. 13 in Pittsburgh.

Anyway, after the morning skate, the Red Wings’ players and coach spoke with the Wings’ media corps:

Meanwhile, on the ice at Little Caesars Arena, the Penguins held their morning skate:

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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!

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