The Red Wings have signed junior goaltender Troy Passingham to a 24-hour
amateur tryout contract just in case Chris Osgood can’t dress tonight when the Wings face off against the Vancouver Canucks from the Joe. This is according to Ansar Khan of Mlive.com.
Passingham, 20 will only dress tonight if Osgood cannot give it a go. Osgoods status will be determined later this afternoon.
Passingham played for Windsor and Sarnia this season as an overage junior.
The Wings face this predicament because the team had to send recent backup Joey MacDonald back to Grand Rapids to recall forward Jan Mursak. Mursak was needed to fill in for the recent string of injuries to top line forwards like Pavel Datsyuk, Todd Bertuzzi, Johan Franzen and Jiri Hudler.
Speaking of Jiri Hudler, Khan writes that he (Hudler) may try to play tonight after missing the past three games dealing with the flu, a sore shoulder and a stiff neck.
Red Wings head coach Mike Babcock says that Hudler’s status for tonight will be determined after the pre-game warm-ups.
“I want to play,” Hudler said. “I’m still and sore and stiff, but what are you going to do? I don’t want to sit around and watch TV.
“It’s a big game for both teams. It’s getting tighter and tighter in the West. We need points.”
If Hudler can play the team will dress 12 forwards and scratch a defenseman. If Hulder can’t play tonight the Wings will dress 11 forwards and 7 defensemen.
As far as Datsyuk goes, the injured forward says he hopes to start skating Thursday but is unsure if he will be ready to go on Saturday when the Wings welcome in the Toronto Maple Leafs to the Joe.
“We’ll see after tomorrow,” Datsyuk said. “It’s much better.”
Source: Mlive.com
