Puck Drop: 7:00 PM EST
Location: Little Caesar’s Arena – Detroit, MI
TV: BSD, NBCSCA
Radio: 97.1 The Ticket
Sharks’ SBNation Blog: Fear The Fin
Detroit Red Wings fans are desperately looking for something positive to cheer for. San Jose Sharks fans are in tank mode with an eye on the Connor Bedard sweepstakes.
So let’s be honest, both fanbases are probably rooting for the Wings to get the win here.
This will be the second meeting between the Wings and Sharks this season. The first one, back in November, was a wild mess of a game that featured 11 goals and a combined 26 giveaways. The Wings won that one 7-4 thanks to three goals in the final six minutes.
The Sharks may be bottom-dwellers at the moment, but they still have a few bright spots capable of causing headaches. Timo Meier and Tomas Hertl are each making a strong case in the “most underrated player in the league” debate, while old man Erik Karlsson (who I just realized after typing this joke is a full year younger than me, damn it) is flirting with the first 100-point season by a defensemen in 30 years. Not to mention Evgeny Svechnikov is on the Sharks now, and it would somehow be very on brand if he had some sort of career night.
Meanwhile, us here on the Wings’ side of things are just looking for a big win to celebrate. Objectively, Detroit’s play has been reasonably solid over the past few weeks, but for whatever reason, those solid performances aren’t translating to wins. Recent losses to the likes of the Blue Jackets, Coyotes, and Flyers have started to elicit flashbacks of last season’s horrid second half. I firmly believe this year’s Wings team is vastly improved from last year’s squad, but they’re going to need to start picking up wins in games like these to help me prove it.