DETROIT – Forward Patrik Elias won't be in the lineup when the New Jersey Devils (16-13-5) play the Detroit Red Wings (17-9-7) on Tuesday at Joe Louis Arena (7:30 p.m., MSG+, FS-D+) because of a knee injury.
Elias missed the start of the season because of a knee injury and made his season debut on Nov. 25. He has a goal and four assists in 13 games and was a healthy scratch in a 2-1 shootout loss at the Boston Bruins on Sunday.
"It has nothing to do with what was bothering me before," Elias said. "Whatever my issue was before, it's not the same today. This is more muscle related. So I don't know if it was from the skate (on Monday) or the night before when I didn't play.”
Devils coach John Hynes said it wasn't known how long Elias would be out.
"We're not sure yet," Hynes said. "It wasn't like it was one thing."
Detroit will be without defenseman Jonathan Ericsson for a second consecutive game because of a shoulder injury. Jakub Kindl will again take Ericsson's place in the lineup.
The Red Wings will go with two new defense pairings on Tuesday. Niklas Kronwall will be paired with Danny DeKeyser and Brendan Smith will skate with Mike Green. Kindl will play with Alexey Marchenko on the third pair.
Green and Smith play high risk games because they like to jump into the rush and make plays. Smith will defer to Green, who has more experience and is proven.
"I've been watching him pretty closely so there's some things I'm going to have to do, maybe be a little more safe because he likes to get up there and he's really good at it," Smith said. "So I think you'll see a little bit more of a defensive game out of me because of the situation, and it makes sense."
Here are the projected lineups:
DEVILS
Michael Cammalleri - Adam Henrique - Lee Stempniak
Jiri Tlusty - Travis Zajac - Kyle Palmieri
Sergey Kalinin - Jacob Josefson - Tyler Kennedy
Tuomo Ruutu - Stephen Gionta - Jordin Tootoo
Injured: Patrik Elias (knee), Ryan Clowe (concussion), Bobby Farnham (shoulder)
Scratched: Eric Gelinas
RED WINGS
Dylan Larkin - Henrik Zetterberg - Justin Abdelkader
Darren Helm - Pavel Datsyuk - Brad Richards
Gustav Nyquist - Riley Sheahan - Tomas Tatar
Tomas Jurco - Luke Glendening - Joakim Andersson
Niklas Kronwall - Danny DeKeyser
Jakub Kindl - Alexey Marchenko
Injured: Jonathan Ericsson (shoulder), Drew Miller (broken jaw), Teemu Pulkkinen (dislocated shoulder), Johan Franzen (concussion), Kyle Quincey (ankle)
Scratched: Tomas Nosek, Xavier Ouellet
Status report: Merrill replaces Gelinas, who played Sunday at Boston, in the lineup for the Devils.
Who's hot: Zetterberg has two goals and four assists in his past seven games.