Game 65 Preview: Red Wings (36-16-11) at Bruins (32-22-10)

It's barely the afternoon, what is this craziness?! Everybody up? Okay then. Time to hit the Garden ice.

By ThisIsntLeonard Mar 8, 2015, 10:00am EDT

Just the Facts:

Game Time: 12:30 PM, TD Garden.

TV Broadcast: NBC, SN360 (Sorry, Jack)

Radio Broadcast: 98.5 The Sports Hub

Rival SB Nation Site: Winging It in Motown

Detroit Red Wings - (36-16-11), 83 Points, 3rd in Atlantic

"This'll be the year," they said. "This is the year that Detroit's playoff streak ends." Mike Babcock's contract is up at the end of the year, he'll take on new challenges elsewhere come the offseason, and Hockeytown's streak of 23 consecutive postseason appearances will be over by the summer of 2015. Or so many thought back in early October.

Yet here we are again, less than 20 games until the Stanley Cup Playoffs and Detroit has locked up (not mathematically, but logistically) the 3rd spot in the Atlantic division. It's amazing how well Detroit works, as they seem to be simultaneously one of the oldest and youngest teams in the league. The veterans of Zetterberg, Datsyuk, Franzen and Kronwall along with newcomers Gustav "The New Bruin-Killer" Nyquist, Tomas Tatar, Riley Sheahan and Danny DeKeyser have skated well enough in front of Jimmy Howard and various goaltending tandems to Detroit in prime position for another Cup run.

The Red Wings have the same tall task as the Bruins, which is getting by Tampa Bay and Montreal. While Detroit is 1-1-1 in their three games against Boston this year, they are 0-3-2 in their five games against the Lightning and Canadiens. Unless Howard is able to steal a series, or they're able to continue to ride their league-leading powerplay into the postseason, the Wings could be in line for another early exit.

Boston Bruins - (32-22-10), 74 Points, 4th in Atlantic (2nd Wild Card)

If the Bruins didn't have bad luck, they'd have no luck at all. If they didn't have Patrice Bergeron and Brad Marchand, they'd be well out of the playoffs. Marchand scored both the game-tying and game-winning goal in yesterday's overtime thriller. After Boston saw a one-goal lead turn into a one-goal deficit with under five minutes left in the 3rd, Marchand became the first 20-goal scorer for the team on the year with 14.1 seconds left, before getting his 21st half-way through overtime.

Boston's win put them 4 points ahead of the Florida Panthers, before it came back down to a 2-point lead with the Panthers win last night. The good news is that Boston now has two games in hand over Sunrise's professional hockey team, with three of their eighteen games remaining coming against the Panthers. Today, the Bruins faceoff against Detroit in their final meeting of the regular season, currently leading the season series with a 2-1-0 record.

The Bruins have played well overall against the Red Wings, out-shooting Detroit a combined 101-74 in their previous three games, and out-scoring them 8-4 over the last two, both Bruins wins. But under Julien, Boston is still 4-8-1 against the Red Wings, not including the five-game playoff series last Spring. Bergeron, Marchand, and the rest of the Bruins will have to keep their energy up after a tough, emotional victory less than 24 hours ago and win the 2nd half of a back-to-back for just the third time this year.

Detroit Red Wings Lineup:

LW	C	RW
Luke Glendening	Pavel Datsyuk	Tomas Tatar
Justin Abdelkader	Henrik Zetterberg	Erik Cole
Stephen Weiss	Riley Sheahan	Gustav Nyquist
Drew Miller	Joakim Andersson	Tomas Jurco

Defensive Pairings
Jonathan Ericsson	Niklas Kronwall
Dan DeKeyser	Kyle Quincey
Brendan Smith	Marek Zidlicky

Goalies
Jimmy Howard	Jonas Gustavsson

Boston Bruins Lineup:

LW	C	RW
Brad Marchand	Patrice Bergeron	Reilly Smith
Milan Lucic	Ryan Spooner	David Pastrnak
Chris Kelly	Carl Soderberg	Loui Eriksson
Daniel Paille	Gregory Campbell	Max Talbot