Tonight will be the last ever Original 6 match up at Joe Louis Arena as the Montreal Canadians come to town in a game that really doesn’t mean much to either side. The Habs will visit on the second half of a back-to-back after last night’s loss to the Tampa Bay Lightning, who had a big win to keep their playoff hopes alive.

Montreal is locked into a first round match up with the New York Rangers so they don’t have a lot on the line tonight but nobody wants to go cold into the post-season so you have to expect a full effort from the Canadiens. The Red Wings will be trying to please another packed home crowd as the say farewell to the Joe. The crowd in recent homes games has been very vocal and seem to be really celebrating everything that the building has given to them over the years, it is really cool to see a team that has struggled all season still receiving unfaltering fan support and I suspect tonight will be no different.

So far this season the teams have split two wins each posting records of MON (2-2-0) and DET (2-1-1).

Detroit Red Wings Lines Via Dailyfaceoff.com

Matt Lorito will make his NHL debut tonight for the Wings after enjoying a successful first season in Grand Rapids with 54 points in 59 games. It’s good to see more of the players coming up from Grand Rapids as the season winds down and definitely good for Lorito to be rewarded after a strong season to get to play in his first NHL game at home in the Joe. A nice bonus for him is getting to play on a line with Dylan Larkin and Justin Abdelkader. He’ll log some good minutes with them.

Gustav Nyquist and Tomas Tatar have been leading the Red Wings attack as the season winds down and it seems letting both of these players play along side Henrik Zetterberg has really got their momentum going. Nyquist has 11 points (3G-8A) in his past 11 games and Tatar has 14 points (9G-5A) in his past 15 games.

Montreal Canadiens Lines Via Dailyfaceoff.com

Montreal will be resting many of their top players with the playoff situation all locked up including Max Pacioretty, Andrei Markov, Alexander Radulov,  Carey Price and both Shea Weber Alexei Emelin, who are day-to-day. Mikhail Sergachev was called up from the OHL’s Windsor Spitfires under emergency conditions. He’ll slot into the bottom D-pair with Brett Lernout. Sergachev’s put up 43 points in 50 games for the Spits this season. It should be a matchup of many youngsters playing hard against each other which usually can lead to some fast paced and entertaining hockey from a fans perspective.

The top scorer in tonight’s lineup for Montreal will be Alex Galchenyuk who has already scored an overtime winner against the Red Wings earlier this season. Galchenyuk has been on a cold streak recently with only three points(1G-2A) in his past 11 games.

Petr Mrazek vs. Charlie Lindgren

Petr Mrazek will look to win his second consecutive start after getting the W against Ottawa in a shootout allowing 4 goals on 45 shots and stopping all 7 opportunities against in the shootout. With the recent trend of alternating games it sets up the veteran Jimmy Howard to likely be the starter for tomorrow’s final game in Joe Louis Arena.

With Carey Price resting up in Montreal, the 23-year-old Lindgren will make his second start of the season. Al Montoya is banged up, so Lindgren started Monday, stopping 31 of 32 shots in a 6-2 win over the Panthers. Lindgren was a three-year standout at St. Cloud State and was called up after going 22-17-1 with a 2.62 GAA and .913 SV% in 45 games with St. John’s (AHL this season.

Puck drop is at 7:00 p.m. ET at Joe Louis Arena. You can watch the game on Fox Sports Detroit in the United States and Sportsnet and TVA Sports in Canada. If you can’t watch the game you can listen to it on 97.1 FM The Ticket.

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