At the Rink: Red Wings at Lightning

TAMPA -- The Tampa Bay Lightning received good news when forward Ondrej Palat said he will return to the lineup against the Detroit Red Wings at Amalie Arena on Friday (7:30 p.m., NHLN-US, TVA Sports, SN360).

Palat has missed the past three games because of a foot injury sustained blocking a shot against the Montreal Canadiens.

"I felt pretty good after practice yesterday," Palat said. "I feel like I'm good to go. I'm 100-percent ready for [Friday]. These are the games that you have to play in."

Palat's return should provide a big boost for the Lightning (43-21-7) as they continue to challenge the Canadiens and New York Rangers for first place in the Eastern Conference. He is fourth on the Lightning with 52 points (15 goals, 37 assists) and third with a plus-28 rating.

"We thought [Palat] could be back this weekend and maybe the Boston game Sunday," Lightning coach Jon Cooper said. "But there's tough players and then there's Palat, and he does the tough things like get in the shooting lanes to block the hardest shots. He plays in every situation, the power play, the penalty kill. He's a tough guy to replace."

Tampa Bay made room for Palat by re-assigning forward Mike Angelidis to the Syracuse Crunch of the American Hockey League.

Detroit (38-20-11) will be playing the second part of back-to-back games Friday after a 3-1 loss to the Florida Panthers on Thursday. The Red Wings trail the Lightning by six points for second in the Atlantic Division, having played two fewer games.

Cooper said he expects the Red Wings to bring a Stanley Cup Playoff-level intensity Friday as they try to make a final run to catch the Lightning before the end of the regular season.

"Detroit just has a really good team. And you look up and down the Eastern Conference and you don't really want to play anybody," Cooper said. "They are very deep all the way through, they are deep on defense and their goaltending is excellent. Much like Montreal, we've had their number all year but they have been competitive games."

The Red Wings will give Jimmy Howard the start in goal. Howard has sat behind Petr Mrazek for the past two games after allowing seven goals on 36 shots against the Philadelphia Flyers last Saturday.

Here are the projected lineups:

RED WINGS

Justin Abdelkader - Henrik Zetterberg - Gustav Nyquist

Tomas Tatar - Riley Sheahan - Darren Helm

Erik Cole - Joakim Andersson - Teemu Pulkkinen

Drew Miller - Luke Glendening - Tomas Jurco

Jonathan Ericsson - Niklas Kronwall

Danny DeKeyser - Kyle Quincey

Brendan Smith - Marek Zidlicky

Jimmy Howard

Petr Mrazek

Scratched: Jakub Kindl, Daniel Cleary, Stephen Weiss

Injured: Pavel Datsyuk (lower body), Jonas Gustavsson (head), Johan Franzen (concussion)

LIGHTNING

Alex Killorn - Steven Stamkos - Ryan Callahan

Nikita Kucherov - Tyler Johnson - Ondrej Palat

Jonathan Drouin - Valtteri Filppula - Vladislav Namestnikov

Brenden Morrow - Brian Boyle - J.T. Brown

Andrej Sustr - Victor Hedman

Anton Stralman - Mark Barberio

Jason Garrison - Matthew Carle

Ben Bishop

Andrei Vasilevskiy

Scratched: Nikita Nesterov

Injured: Cedric Paquette (lower body), Braydon Coburn (lower body).

Status report: Paquette practiced Thursday and took part in the optional skate Friday in a non-contact jersey. He's hoping to return to the lineup next week. … Datsyuk will miss his second straight game Friday.

Who's hot: Stamkos has three goals in the past three games. … Cole scored his 20th goal of the season Thursday.