Opening Night Roster

This morning, Ansar Khan gave Red Wing nation a bit of hope when reporting the following lines at the team's practice

Zetterberg-Datsyuk-Abdelkader.

Nyquist-Helm-Franzen

Tatar-Sheahan-Jurco

Miller-Glendening-Andersson. 

Cleary-Weiss-Nestrasil

Kronwall-Ericsson

DeKeyser-Smith

Ouellet-Quincey

Lashoff-Kindl

Aside from Datsyuk being back in the lineup it was a bit of a surprise that Babcock was actually giving jobs to those who deserved them. In time, I hope Weiss gets up to speed allowing the Wings to move Helm up to the wing with 13/40 and Abdelkader can move down to the 4th line. But for the time being this still give the Wings three solid scoring lines up front. On the back end Babcock finally went with the D pair I have been dying to see, DeKeyser and Smith. He also was not oblivious to the exceptional play of Ouellet this preseason as he blatantly clearly earned a job over Lashoff and Kindl. 

Now after this initial burst of hope we were brought down to Earth with the news that Datsyuk will not be dressing opening night as he still needs time to recover from the separated shoulder. So now lets go back and determine who is actually going to be with the Red Wings on opening night. Realistically, the Red Wings need to trade one of Kindl/Lashoff, however that is extremely unlikely to happen based on how they have played as of late. Therefore the Wings need to free up 2 more roster spots. Datsyuk moving to the IR will free up one of the spots, leaving the remaining spot most likely coming from the demotion of Ouellet down to Grand Rapids. He deserves to be playing with the big club and obviously outplayed the other two but it is the easiest solution. So instead we are left with what I hope would be

Nyquist-Zetterberg-Abdelkader.

Tatar-Helm-Franzen

Nestrasil-Sheahan-Jurco

Miller-Glendening-Andersson. 

Cleary-Weiss

Kronwall-Ericsson

DeKeyser-Smith

Kindl-Quincey

Lashoff 

So the Wings move Nestrasil up, letting Weiss and Cleary try and ease back and go back to the same D core. I really do think DK and Smith could prove to be a solid 2nd pair, and while Quincey takes a lot of heat he should do well in the 3rd pair. I would rather play Kindl than Lashoff simply because I think Kindl still has some potential left while Lashoff is what he is at this point. Hopefully with some time Kindl can figure his game out enough that he can rightfully earn a roster spot or get traded out of town. Another year of Red Wings hockey, and another year of young guys losing their rightfully earned spots. Regardless, I still like the above roster and there is still a lot of potential for this team to do really well once Datsyuk returns. Can't wait for Thursday night.

UPDATE:
Lines at practice on Tuesday we have

Franzen-Zetterberg-Abdelkader

Nestrasil-Helm-Nyquist

Tatar-Sheahan-Jurco

Miller-Glendening-Andersson