After an emotional overtime win against the Leafs on Thursday night, the Wings are back in action tonight against the New York Islanders. A game that can either be a track meet or a molasses showdown.

This Islanders team have only won one of their last five games, while the Wings are currently doing something no one actually expected – winning games. They have recently plateaued a bit, but the Wings have still an overall record that no one expected coming into this season. A rough start followed by a win streak and then around the .500 mark for the last three weeks – it has been a wild ride for the Red Wings.

Without a five-win streak in late-October, the Islanders would have a lot more criticism and cynicism directed towards them – they have certainly ridden that PDO high for a long time. Losing their franchise forward and depending on younger and more depth players to rise up to the occasion, everything has not been completely lost. Like any team in this league, they can always sneak out a win.

The Wings will get Tyler Bertuzzi back tonight against the Islanders, but we get to experience first-line Abdelkader for the time being. With injuries to Helm and Mantha, the forward depth has surely been lacking but seeing Ehn and Frk get more NHL minutes cannot be a bad thing. Just look for the silver lining on everything.

On the back end, DeKeyser and Daley are still out, so on the plus side first-line Cholowski! Nick Jensen really impressed on Thursday and certainly deserves to get more hype around the league as a Kempny-like addition to any playoff team come trade deadline time.

Luke Witkowski will continue to be Luke Witkowski.

I understand a coach wanting to spread out the talent among his forward lines, but why not load up Barzal with the best players you have? Hope for an Avalanche/Devils-esque powerhouse line that will score you some goals and potentially win you games. But I won’t question Barry Trotz too much when he was able to not be in the basement of the league with a bottom-six like that.

On the blueline, there is just depression and sorrow. Old players that will get older and some young(ish) guys that have probably reached their ceilings as depth NHL defenceman. The New York Islanders baby!

Bernier will be making his first back-to-back appearance of the season, a rare occurrence for Jimmy Howard to be rested this much, but when Bernier was able to squeeze out that win against the Leafs, why not? He has an .896 sv% on the season, so it’s not like he’s outperforming Jimmy, but against an offensively-shallow team like the Islanders, Bernier will be able to play a pretty simple game. Get him some game time and hope for Jimmy to be healthy enough to (possibly) warrant a trade.

Greiss will be making his 17th start tonight against the Wings. The designated starter for the Islanders, the German netminder has certainly earned that title. A .918 sv% and a 2.61 GAA proves that the Islanders trust him enough to keep him back there. He is coming off a game where he was pulled mid-game against the Penguins, after letting in 5 goals on just 21 shots, so either Greiss will continue this downfall of poor play or bounce back and just suddenly have a shutout. So pretty much the way the Islanders have been forever.

Puck drop is at 7:00 P.M. ET tonight and you can catch the game on Fox Sports Detroit. Join the gang in what will be an exciting matchup against a rare worse team than the Red Wings.

As always, follow along with us on Twitter as we post reactions, gifs, and everything else a topical sports blog twitter account should have.