Wings continue youth movement during losing streak
The word from Ansar Khan is that the Red Wings will start Jimmy Howard in net this afternoon. With the team sputtering during a 5-game losing streak it definitely makes sense to juggle the lineup, add some new faces from Grand Rapids, and see if anything clicks.
If Howard plays as well as he has the last two games that would go a long way towards giving Detroit a chance to snap their skid. Here are his stats for those games:
0-0-0, 0.18 GAA, .931 SV%
* his GAA is closer to 1.54 over the past two games
He’s played a little more than four periods over the past two games but there also wasn’t much pressure on him as the games were more or less over when he replaced Chris Osgood. But if he plays well today he will add another option for Mike Babcock to consider as he tries to rebuild a team that is missing some key pieces in Brian Rafalski, Niklas Kronwall, Dominik Hasek and Dan Cleary.
Even if Howard impresses the odds are good he’s sent back down to Grand Rapids. But if Hasek’s injured hip continues to linger and if Hasek is placed on the IR then Howard could have a nice little run alternating starts with Chris Osgood, which will likely happen full-time next season. It also gives the team something to rally around. He’s a couple years older than Carey Price but his playoff stats in the AHL last season were similar to Price’s:
Howard
1.93 GAA, .927 SV%
Price
2.05 GAA, .936 SV%
Right now Price looks like the best of the up and comer young netminders. He was excellent in net last night for the Habs. It’d be a great sign if Howard looks like he’s in the same ballpark as Price. So that’s one thing to follow.
Kyle Quincey struggled a bit in the game against Columbus, playing 10:22 and going -1. He was paired mostly with Chris Chelios and Andreas Lilja. He’s had a bit of a lost season in Grand Rapids so hopefully getting the call-up to play in Detroit will help get him back on track.
I saw this article posted over at the MLIVE Snapshots blog and took particular interest in this part of the article:
…Mike Babcock told me earlier this season that he can’t wait to get defense prospect J[onathan] Ericsson in his lineup, so I don’t think there will be any expensive rental trades for Detroit…
I chose the big Swede as my Adopt a Griffin back in October based on how he looked in Detroit during the preseason games. It’s obviously made sense to play him huge minutes in Grand Rapids in all situations [even-strength, power play and penalty kill] and he’s responded by outscoring every single Red Wings forward prospect on the team.
I’d like to see him get a call-up at some point and see how he looks in Detroit. He has the potential to become a top 4 d-man and Red Wings Central lists him right behind Jimmy Howard as the #2 prospect in the organization. Detroit needs a top 4 defenseman or two. Sure, he’s probably a little green for that role right now but throwing him out there against NHL talent on a third pairing would be a good way to see if he’s close to ready.
Oh yeah, if Ericsson’s as good in the NHL as he’s been thus far in the AHL he’s likely to be yet another end of the draft home run along the lines of Pavel Datsyuk and Hank Zetterberg. He was chosen in the 10th round with the 291st pick.
He’ll still be waiver-free next season according to RWC but so was Val Filppula last season. Val, though, had a big supporter in his corner in Mike Babcock, and when Greg Johnson had to retire Fil was brought up to Detroit and is now a regular on a scoring line. With Babs offering up his personal approval for Ericsson hopefully the wait won’t be much longer before the big Swede joins the rearguards in the Motor City.
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