Can the Red Wings play spoiler when facing the Hurricanes?

Tuesday night, hockey fans can enjoy eight games in the NHL. The Carolina Hurricanes travel to Michigan to meet the Detroit Red Wings. The Canes can't really afford a defeat, do they book an import victory, or is it Detroit who will play spoiler again?

Detroit Red Wings: last in the league

The Detroit Red Wings are going through a brutal season in the NHL. It's sitting at the bottom with 39 points out of 70 games. They are the only side already eliminated from the contention to make the Stanley Cup playoffs. The Red Wings have already conceded 262 goals this season. It's clearly visible that they lack a lot of quality in their defence and attack, so for General Manager Steve Yzerman will have a difficult task to strengthen the team this spring.

Detroit gets the chance to win three consecutive games for the second time this season tonight. Last Friday, the hockey team was too strong for the Chicago Blackhawks (2-1 win) and last Sunday, the Red Wings caused an upset by beating the Tampa Bay Lightning in a 5-4 shootout at Little Caesars Arena. The Bolts played the second half of back-to-back games and had trouble finding their motivation in a late afternoon/early evening game in Detroit

Carolina Hurricanes: two important wins

The Carolina Hurricanes are currently competing for a play-off ticket in this season's heavily occupied Metro Division. A week and a half ago, the Canes booked a major win over the Toronto Maple Leafs in a memorable game. James Reimer and Petr Mrazek were both injured in this game and head coach Rod Brindamour had to rely on 42-year-old ice machine driver David Ayres to hold on to an, in first instance, comfortable lead. With Reimer and Mrazek out for the next few games, Carolina faced a difficult task to grab important points in their battle for a play-off ticket.

Brindamour had to rely on AHL-goalies Alex Nedeljkovic and Anton Forsberg in the most recent matches. No miracles were to be expected from both goalkeepers in the first four games, in which they both defended the goal twice. Carolina took one point in those games, but surprisingly they booked wins in back-to-back games after this against the New York Islanders and Pittsburgh Penguins. The Canes are currently ranked fifth in the Metro Division and will face some nerve-racking weeks with the New York Islanders and the New York Rangers just behind them in the rankings.

Hurricanes - 1.5

Petr Mrazek gets the nod in net tonight for the Canes. He missed the last six games, but The Czech is performing particularly well at home this season. Carolina ranks 3th out of 31 teams in puck possession, while Detroit also ranks last in this aspect. So we can assume that Carolina will be the most dominant team by a landslide tonight. Jimmy Howard will most likely be in net for the Red Wings. It sounds a bit exaggerated, but the goalie isn’t capable of stopping a beach ball this season. On average, he concedes 4.2 goals per game, his record is telling (2-23-2) and with a save percentage of 0.882 he's the least performing goalie with twenty games or more behind his name.