Detroit's week has gone up and down. The Red Wings beat Florida 5-3. Michael Brandsegg-Nygard and Justin Faulk each had a goal and an assist, and Carter Mazur scored his first NHL goal. That win put them at 7-5-3 and 3-for-4 in their last 4. The next night in Tampa, on the back half of a back-to-back, the Lightning scored twice in the 1st period and held on to win 4-2. The local beat calls this team "consistently inconsistent," which is about right.
The bigger news from Tampa came in net. John Gibson left after the 1st period, and Detroit hadn't said much about why when this was written. Whether Gibson starts Thursday matters more to this game than anything else either team does between now and then. Facing Eichel, Stone and Hertl with a backup in goal is a very different job from facing them with the starter.
Then there's Larkin. The Detroit beat spent the last week of October on headlines like "Red Wings Move on From Larkin," with GM Andrew Horcoff saying he was set on getting the best return for the club. Whatever the final shape of that story, Detroit is playing through it, and young forwards like Brandsegg-Nygard and Mazur are showing up on the scoresheet. Vegas will test that group with a top 6 that just won a road game on the power play late in the 3rd.
Both teams come in with a day of rest after a back-to-back, so neither has a schedule excuse. Detroit's job is to stay out of the box, because Vegas just showed what it does with a late power play. Vegas has to avoid sleepwalking through a mid-trip road game against a home team that has been winning more often than it loses. No board has been posted yet, so for now this is just a hockey game with a goalie question in the middle of it.
