Game Thread: Detroit Red Wings at Edmonton Oilers - One Way Ticket

It gets really boring writing pre-games, lines and pairings and game threads when the Oilers play the same teams over and over again. Exquisitely boring, in fact. But, if we mess around with the lines and pairings posts we get hatemail. That just makes me want to mess around with other posts. Like this one.

Team Reports

Oilers Report: Oilers fans are thinking playoffs after two straight wins. I've seen this before, and I'm not on board. Hoping the Oilers make the playoffs is a:

Red Wings Report: The Wings are on the way down. Nicklas Lidstrom retired, Ken Holland is about to give a goaltender $40 million, and Mike Babcock is sitting the best defenseman on his team. For the Red Wings:

Expected Line Combinations

Ryan Jones - Ryan Nugent-Hopkins - Jordan Eberle

Magnus Paajarvi - Sam Gagner - Nail Yakupov

I think Paajarvi is at the point where we can all just use one name for him. He's certainly better than "Sting" and he gets one name.

Taylor Hall - Shawn Horcoff - Ales Hemsky

Lennart Petrell - Ryan Smyth - Mike Brown

Nick Schultz - Corey Potter

Ladislav Smid - Jeff Petry

Ryan Whitney - Justin Schultz

Devan Dubnyk

Scratches: Teemu Hartikainen, Theo Peckham, Ben Eager

Ryan Jones is a terrible player, yet remains in the lineup. He's just that demon that's got Ralph in his:

Broadcast Information

By The Numbers

• The Red Wings are significantly better than the Oilers, but hockey is 38% luck, so let's all root for that luck.
• And Paajarvi.