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At the Rink blog

At the Rink: Hurricanes at Red Wings

Tuesday, 04.07.2015 / 5:36 PM

By Paul Harris - NHL.com Correspondent / 2014-2015 At the Rink blog

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2014-2015 At the Rink blog
At the Rink: Hurricanes at Red Wings

DETROIT -- The Detroit Red Wings (41-25-13) can clinch a berth in the Stanley Cup Playoffs with a win against the Carolina Hurricanes (29-39-11) at Joe Louis Arena on Tuesday (7:30 p.m. ET; FS-CR, FS-D) and some help.

Detroit would need the Ottawa Senators to lose in regulation against the Pittsburgh Penguins to secure a playoff spot for the 24th consecutive season.

"Obviously, everybody knows the situation, everybody knows how many points everybody else has," Detroit coach Mike Babcock said. "I really believe we've played a lot of good hockey here of late. We haven't scored, and we let it in too easy.

"We just got to keep building on our game, and I think that's what we're doing. We're excited for this opportunity. If I would have told the guys at the start of the year that we had an opportunity to be in the playoffs they would have been jacked. So we're still in that same opportunity."

The Red Wings are 5-10-2 in their past 17 games.

Forward Pavel Datsyuk didn't participate in the morning skate but is expected to play. He has a sore ankle and has only played in four of the past 11 games because of another lower-body injury.

Carolina, which was eliminated from playoff contention, lost 4-3 against the Buffalo Sabres in Buffalo on Monday. The Hurricanes, who have lost four of their past five, fell behind 4-0 early in the second period.

"I think we've got to learn from tonight. Tonight wasn't good enough," Hurricanes coach Bill Peters, a former Red Wings assistant, said after that game. "Not a good enough effort on the road to win in the National Hockey League, and you can't give up four goals this time of year and expect to win."

Carolina didn't skate Tuesday morning and Peters is scheduled to be available to the media before the game.

Here are the projected lineups:

HURRICANES

Eric Staal - Jordan Staal - Elias Lindholm

Jeff Skinner - Andrej Nestrasil - Alexander Semin

Chris Terry - Victor Rask - Nathan Gerbe

Brad Malone - Jay McClement - Patrick Dwyer

Ron Hainsey - Justin Faulk

Brett Bellemore - John-Michael Liles

Michal Jordan - Ryan Murphy

Anton Khudobin

Cam Ward

Scratched: Danny Biega

Injured: Riley Nash (concussion), Rasmus Rissanen (knee), Jack Hillen (concussion)

RED WINGS

Darren Helm - Pavel Datsyuk - Henrik Zetterberg

Gustav Nyquist - Riley Sheahan - Tomas Tatar

Stephen Weiss - Joakim Andersson - Teemu Pulkkinen

Drew Miller - Luke Glendening - Landon Ferraro

Niklas Kronwall - Jonathan Ericsson

Danny DeKeyser - Kyle Quincey

Brendan Smith - Marek Zidlicky

Jimmy Howard

Petr Mrazek

Scratched: Daniel Cleary, Jakub Kindl

Injured: Justin Abdelkader (hand), Erik Cole (upper body), Tomas Jurco (upper body), Johan Franzen (concussion)

Status report: As usual, when the Red Wings are in a tight spot or need a win, Babcock has reunited Datsyuk and Zetterberg. He has also reunited Sheahan between Tatar and Nyquist, which was a productive line earlier in the season. Ferraro was recalled from Grand Rapids of the American Hockey League on Monday.

Who's hot: Eric Staal has a goal and two assists in his past two games.

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