Time: 7:30pm ET

Place: Amalie Arena

TV: FSD, SunS

Radio: 97.1 FM The Ticket, 1270 AM

Lightning Blog: Raw Charge

The Lightning have been winning a lot, including all five games they’ve played at home. The Wings have been losing a lot, and the Wings have shown a remarkable aptitude for losing to the Lightning. But hey, the Wings defeated the mighty Golden Knights so we’re due to play spoiler for another team on a roll.

Bring the thunder...and Greek Lightning!

He’s baaaaaaaaaaack! The long awaited, and much anticipated, return of Andreas Athanasiou saw him practicing with the Wings yesterday. If this doesn’t electrify our offense, what will? AA was getting practice time on a powerplay unit with Larkin, Frk, Mantha and Green as well as on a line with Helm and Nielsen. Those guys could all do some real damage together - the good kind of damage.

I say there’s no reason to make AA wait another game if he feels ready to go, the team is playing like hot trash and need something to get their butts back in gear. But it would be the most Jeff Blashill thing ever to let us hype this all up and then bench him or stick him with fourth line minutes.

The defense report

DeKeyser may be back tonight as well after being injured from a blocked shot on October 10th. Did you miss him? Maybe not, but when Jonathan Ericsson and Trevor Daley are hyped as your best defensive pairing you’ll take what you can get.

I have to mention here that Blashill referred to that pairing as “Johnny and Dales” which is almost worse than “Nyquie”. Sounds like a brand of apple ale. Johnny and Dales’ Apple Ale. Maybe they should pursue that and leave the hockeying to someone else.

For future consideration: Luke Witkowski practiced as a defenseman yesterday, he’s not in the lineup tonight but him playing some defense this season is apparently not out of the question. Maybe when Kronwall has to get the Weetabix holding his insides together changed. Every 3 months or 300 line changes.

The last word

Start fast or stay home, we aren’t in shape to be fighting uphill battles.

Let’s Go Red Wings!

Predicted Lineups

Detroit (Maybe)

Nyquist-Zetterberg-Mantha

Tatar-Larkin-Abdelkader

Athanasiou-Nielsen-Helm

Wilson-Glendening-Frk

Kronwall-Green

Ericsson-Daley

DeKeyser-Jensen

Howard

Mrazek

Tampa Bay

Namestnikov-Stamkos-Kucherov

Palat-Point-Gourde

Killorn-Johnson-Dumont

Kunitz-Brown-Callahan

Hedman-Dotchin

Sergachev-Stralman

Coburn-Girardi

Vasilevskiy

Budaj