The Red Wings are getting borderline unwatchable. At least when they lost in Calgary a week ago they were competitive. Since, they’ve lost in Edmonton, Toronto and Boston and have been terrible in every game.

They were on a back-to-back against a quality Edmonton team. Fine. They haven’t played well against a young Maple Leafs team once this season. That’s unacceptable. The Bruins just blew the wheels off of the Red Wings on Wednesday and left fans feeling hopeless.

They sit 28th in the NHL ahead of only the Arizona Coyotes and Colorado Avalanche, so it couldn’t get worse, right? Wrong! Head coach Jeff Blashill is healthy scratching Anthony Mantha tonight. According to Dom Luszcyszyn’s GameScore model, Mantha has the HIGHEST GameScore of ANY Red Wings player this season (0.81). In contrast, Riley Sheahan, who will skate on the second line tonight, has a GameScore just slightly higher than that of Steve Ott. Yep. Great coaching decision.

Mantha said he was “mad” when he got to the rink this morning and how can you blame him? He is reportedly being scratched for his “compete” level. OK. He has 14 goals and 33 points in 50 games. Sheahan has ZERO goals and nine assists in 63 games. I needed to vent a little bit, let’s get into tonight’s lineups and starting goalies.

Detroit Red Wings Lines via DailyFaceoff

So yeah. Mantha out, Mitch Callahan back in. Dylan Larkin will remain at centre for the second straight game.  If anyone was going to be given the night off it could have been Larkin who had a couple of terrible defensive zone giveaways in Boston.

The loss to the Bruins also saw Henrik Zetterberg’s point streak come to an end at seven games. Over the last month, Zetterberg is the only player with double-digit points (15 in 12 games) and Mantha is the only other player with more than five points—Justin Abdelkader and Andreas Athanasiou each have five.

Niklas Kronwall hilariously scored his first goal of the season on Wednesday, which leaves Sheahan as the only player on the team to play double-digit games and not score a goal.

Chicago Blackhawks Lines via DailyFaceoff

The Blackhawks were shutout by Jonathan Bernier on home ice last night, so they’re probably ready to explode against the Red Wings tonight. To the surprise of no one, Patrick Kane has been hot over the last month and a half. Dating back to February 1st, Kane leads the NHL with 14 goals and is tied for fourth with 21 points in 15 games. Their captain Jonathan Toews isn’t far off, having picked up 20 points (8G / 12A)  over that same span, which is tied for sixth.

The Red Wings will see a familiar face tonight with Tomas Jurco making his return to Joe Louis Arena. He is playing no a line with another former Red Wing Marian Gaborik. Jurco has not recorded a point, but has six shots in five games since being traded to Chicago. Like Alexey Marchenko did, don’t be surprised if Jurco scores his first with his new team against the Red Wings.

Jimmy Howard will make his return to the Red Wings crease tonight. It will be his first NHL start since December 20th, but he’s made four AHL starts since. He won both of his starts on the most recent conditioning stint, including a 21-save shutout on Tuesday. Before he got hurt, Howie was 5-7-1 with a 1.96 GAA, .934 SV% and one shutout.

The only explanation for Mantha being scratched might be Blashill trying to minimize Howard’s offensive support. Of goalies with at least 400 minutes of play this season, Howard has the lowest goal support of any other netminder. The Red Wings have scored just 1.37 Goals per 60 minutes in front of Howard, which is why his record is so poor despite great counting stats.

With Scott Darling sidelined, expect Corey Crawford to start for the second night in a row. Crawford made 25 saves in the Blackhawks’ 1-0 loss last night and has gone 4-1-0 while posting a 2.19 GAA and .932 SV% in his last five games. The Blackhawks and Crawford aren’t quite as good on the road, where he is 13-8-0 with a 2.87 GAA and .909 SV%, but the Red Wings aren’t very good on home ice or anywhere so it likely won’t matter.

Puck drop is at 7:30pm at Joe Louis Arena. You can watch the game on the NHL Network, SportsNet, Fox Sports Detroit or CSN-Chicago and if you can’t watch the game you can listen to it on 97.1 FM The Ticket.

Also, make sure to follow us on Twitter; we’ll have live tweets, GIFS, and all the fun stuff that a topical social media platform has.