Tonight the Wings are hoping to bounce back against the Nashville Predators after being shut out by Steve Mason and the 
Columbus Blue Jackets last night at the Joe.
The Wings are currently seven points ahead of the Predators with a game in hand. According to Ansar Khan of Mlive.com the Predators rank fourth in the NHL in goals against and in penalty-killing, but they’re 25th in goals scored and 26th on the power play.
“They’re a team that feels they should score more and (they) don’t give up a whole bunch,” Babcock said. “Their goaltending has been absolutely outstanding, so it’s going to be a tough test for us. It’s one we have to embrace after playing the way we did last night at home. It’s nice we play a game today so we can turn the page.”
The Wings will also have to give it a go tonight without injured forwards Pavel Datsyuk and Tomas Holmstrom who didn’t make the trip down to Nashville as they are still recovering from broken hands. They will both to get back into the lineup Monday night when the New York Rangers come to town.
Here is tonight’s lineup according to Khan…
Franzen-Zetterberg-Bertuzzi
Hudler-Filppula-Cleary
Draper-Helm-Eaves
Miller-Abdelkader-Mursak
Lidstrom-Kronwall
Ericsson-Rafalski
Kindl-Salei
MacDonald (starting)
Howard
Here is Nashville’s anticipated lineup:
Sergei Kostitsyn-Marcel Goc-Martin Erat
Colin Wilson-David Legwand-Patric Hornqvist
J.P. Dumont-Steve Sullivan-Matt Halischuk
Nick Spaling-Jared Smithson-Joel Ward
Ryan Suter-Shea Weber
Shane O’Brien-Cody Franson
Alexander Sulzer-Kevin Klein
Pekka Rinne
Anders Lindback
Sullivan will return to the lineup after suffering a groin injury on Dec. 23. The Predators are missing forwards Matthew Lombardi (concussion), Cal O’Reilly (broken fibula) and Marek Svatos (knee surgery) and defenseman Francois Bouillon (concussion).
Source: Mlive.com
