Gustav-Nyquist-3-25-14

The Red Wings' Gustav Nyquist scores against Columbus' Curtis McElhinney as teammate Riley Sheahan watches.

(The Associated Press)

DETROIT – Brett Hull was a little bit before Gustav Nyquist’s time, but the young Detroit Red Wings forward is well aware what a tremendous sniper the Hall-of-Famer was.

If Nyquist scores a goal tonight against the Montreal Canadiens at Joe Louis Arena (7 p.m., Fox Sports Detroit) he would stretch his goal-scoring streak to seven games, equaling the longest for a Red Wing since Hull’s run in 2003 (Nov. 26 to Dec. 8).

“I was pretty young,” said Nyquist, who was 14 at the time. “I’m not surprised, he was a great player.”

Nyquist is on quite a roll. He has nine goals in his past six games and 20 goals in his past 24 games.

He will continue skating on a line with Riley Sheahan and Tomas Tatar. Tomas Jurco, who returns tonight from a broken rib, will start the game on a line with David Legwand and Johan Franzen.

Nyquist credited linemates for creating opportunities for him and then said, “some of the goals have been off pretty good deflections as well, so it’s nice to see the puck go in.

“It’s been a crazy year with injuries, but we (young players) have gotten an opportunity to play a lot more minutes and in different situations. That’s given us all some more confidence.”

Coach Mike Babcock said Nyquist’s hockey IQ is “off the charts.”

“He’s been good everywhere he’s been; he’s led his leagues in scoring,” Babcock said. “He’s always been a real good player, (but) you never know if it’s going to translate in the NHL. We’ve all seen tons of good players in junior or college and they come to the American League and it doesn’t happen.

“He’s very, very smart. He can create space, he’s competitive, he’s a real confident kid in his own abilities and he’s played well and he’s on a roll. Keep working hard and might as well keep it going.”

Steve Yzerman holds the franchise record for the longest goal-scoring streak at nine games (Jan. 29 to Feb. 12, 1992). Nyquist's streak equals the club's longest since Daniel Cleary scored in six consecutive games in 2010 (Nov. 5-17).

Red Wings captain Henrik Zetterberg, out since the Olympics due to back surgery, said it's "awesome to see" what Nyquist is doing.

“He’s the hottest player in the league right now and we hope it’s going to continue,” Zetterberg said.

“I don’t think anyone expected him to have this many goals in this amount of games, but we always knew he was a good player. … As soon as he came up (from Grand Rapids), he showed where he belonged and just kept going. He can create a lot of stuff by himself and when he plays with good players, good stuff happens.”

David Legwand said Nyquist's roll is something he hasn't seen in 15 years.

"Obviously, you see the (Alex) Ovechkins do that with the 20 goals in (24) games," Legwand said. "He’s a player that gets himself in the right areas at the right times and the puck finds him out there.”

Here are tonight’s lines and defense pairs for the Red Wings:

Here are tonight’s anticipated line combinations and defense pairings:

Johan Franzen-David Legwand-Tomas Jurco

Tomas Tatar-Riley Sheahan-Gustav Nyquist

Joakim Andersson-Darren Helm-Daniel Alfredsson

Drew Miller-Luke Glendening-Todd Bertuzzi

Niklas Kronwall-Brendan Smith

Kyle Quincey-Danny DeKeyser

Brian Lashoff-Jakub Kindl

Jimmy Howard (starting)

Jonas Gustavsson