In a season opener re-match, the Red Wings look to build on the momentum gained in their 4-2 win against the Dallas Stars on Sunday evening.

Since their season opening win, the Columbus Blue Jackets have gone 5-4-0, while the Red Wings have gone 2-6-2. Both teams have struggled to get consistent performances from their goaltenders, ranking in the bottom-third of the league in goals-against with 38 and 42 respectively.

The last time they met, Columbus may have escaped with the victory, but Detroit played pretty well and now, with a greater veteran presence in the lineup and two wins under their belt, a growing sense of confidence should be permeating from that locker room.

I expect these practice lines from yesterday to be changed right before game time. With the announcement of Andreas Athanasiou and Frans Nielsen being out with injuries, Blashill moved Michael Rasmussen into his natural position to center the fourth line with Martin Frk on his left and Joe Hicketts on his right. I expect Hicketts was just a fill-in for practice and Luke Witkowski will likely be the game time decision.

I don’t love this for Rasmussen. In my opinion, the better option is moving Darren Helm to center the third line and bump Luke Glendening to play with Frk and Witkowski. Nevertheless, this is what we have right now. Jacob De La Rose holds his spot as second line center likely due to his history of playing with Gustav Nyquist at the World Championships last year.

On the back-end, Danny DeKeyser is out for at least another game recovering from his hand/wrist injury, so there’s no update to those lines, despite the Jonathan Ericsson and Trevor Daley pairing being a tire fire. Dennis Cholowski holds onto his spot on the top line with Mike Green, while also quarterbacking the second power play unit.

As expected, the still-to-be-signed Artemi Panarin is leading the charge for the Blue Jackets with five goals and 15 points. The Jackets entire first line has a combined 34 points and make up three of the four top point-getters on the team. The fourth is all-star defenseman Zach Werenski.

The Blue Jackets have depth, also. Captain Nick Foligno is anchoring the second line with his 3 goals and 7 points and third line winger Anthony Duclair is proving he does have an offensive upside with his 4 goals and six points, including a goal-of-the-year candidate.

On the blue line, Seth Jones will be playing in his fourth game of the season after sitting out the opening weeks with an injury. He’s scored one goal so far. Ryan Murray  and Markus Nutivaara have chipped in quite a bit from the 2nd pairing as they each have five points on the season.

Jimmy Howard vs. Joonas Korpisalo

Despite earning his first ‘W’ of the season, Jonathan Bernier will be back behind the bench tonight as Jeff Blashill has opted to go with Jimmy Howard in tonight’s game. Howard had a rough start, but has clawed his way back to having an honorable .913 save percentage. His goals against average is still over 3, but that’s because of the volume of goals this team is letting in this year. He’s looking for his second win of the season.

In the Blue Jackets end, Joonas Korpisalo is getting the nod for the third game in a row as a struggling Sergei Bobrovsky searches for his way back from a very shaky start. Korpisalo is undefeated so far this season, but it is mostly due to his team’s ability to score. His save percentage is a below-average .897 and his goals against average is 3.46, which is higher than Howard’s. This is a good opportunity for Detroit’s scorers to pot some goals and build their confidence.

Puck drop tonight is at 7:00 P.M. EST and you’ll be able to watch the game with Ken Daniels and the boys on FSD+ or on Fox Sports Ohio if you’re tuning in on the other side of the state lines.

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