According to Ansar Khan of Mlive.com, Red Wings’ forwards Pavel Datsyuk and Tomas Holmstrom will still be held out of Friday’s game against the Columbus Blue Jackets and will more then likely be held out for Saturday’s game against Nashville.
Khan said the head coach Mike Babcock isn’t sure either Holmstrom or Datsyuk will be able to return however Monday night’s game against the Rangers remains a possibility.
“Our big thing here is we can afford to be patient with the people that are injured because we’re winning games,” Babcock said. “If you weren’t winning games maybe guys would play when they’re still a little uncomfortable. Our guys have been cleared to play but it’s just a matter of they don’t feel like they can at this point.”
Holmstrom says that despite feeling better, he still can’t really shoot the puck.
Both Holmstrom and Datsyuk are recovering from broken right hands.
There is good news though, veteran forward Mike Modano who lacerated his wrist on November 25th may be back sooner than early to mid March…
“It’s getting closer. I think it’s week to week, it’s getting better,” Modano said. “We’ve always looked at a 12-week program. I’m just over nine weeks. We’ll have a big talk about it when I’m at the 12-week mark, Feb. 20-21. It’s feeling good, but there’s a lot of conditioning yet to do, just getting up to speed with these guys.”
“It’s moving in the right direction. Flexibility is really good. It’s just that being shut down for seven weeks in a cast, I’m trying to get that strength back.”
Here is tomorrow night’s lineup according to Khan with Jimmy Howard starting in goal…
Franzen-Zetterberg-Bertuzzi
Hudler-Filppula-Cleary
Draper-Helm-Eaves
Miller-Abdelkader-Mursak
Lidstrom-Kronwall
Ericsson-Rafalski
Kindl-Salei
Howard (starting)
MacDonald
Source: Mlive.com
