Helene St. James

Detroit Free Press

Niklas Kronwall is not expected to be ready for Thursday’s season opener at Tampa Bay.

Kronwall took part in today afternoon’s practice at Joe Louis Arena, but head coach Jeff Blashill said “there is a chance he won’t be ready for the opener.”

Kronwall is dealing with a permanently bad knee, and there is concern within the organization about his short-term and long-term availability.

Today’s defense pairings had Danny DeKeyser with Alexey Marchenko, Brendan Smith with Mike Green and Jonathan Ericsson with Xavier Ouellet, with Ryan Sproul serving as reserve.

That appears to be who will be in the lineup for the opener.

“That’s what we’re leaning towards right now,” Blashill said. “We’ve got two more days so I don’t want to get ahead of ourselves. But we went into practice saying let’s watch them in practice and see.”

Smith and Green were used quite a bit last season, and enjoy playing with one another. Marchenko is coming off a very good World Cup of Hockey performance, and could be ready for bigger minutes with DeKeyser.

Note: Blashill said Tomas Nosek has undergone a procedure for a lower-body injury, unrelated to the knee injury he suffered during the Red and White game. Blashill sounded like Nosek will be out for some time.

Contact Helene St. James: hstjames@freepress.com. Follow her on Twitter @helenestjames.Check out our Red Wings Xtra app on Apple and Android!

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