Ryan Johansen will return to the Predators' lineup tonight in Detroit (at 6:30 p.m. CT).
Nashville Head Coach John Hynes said Johansen, who has been on Injured Reserve since Feb. 8, will be available to play this evening. Johansen skated on the third line during the Predators full morning skate at Little Caesars Arena on Tuesday; Brad Richardson skated as an extra forward and will not return tonight.
The Preds (7-10-0) will play their next two games in Detroit to finish their four-game road trip, which was originally scheduled to be a six-game excursion with two games in Dallas. Nashville won their last contest, 4-2, in Columbus.
The Red Wings (5-12-3) are 1-1-0 against Nashville this season. Detroit was also victorious in their last game, a 2-1 triumph over the Florida Panthers.
Update: Following today's morning skate in Detroit, Hynes confirmed Johansen will return to the lineup tonight and will center Eeli Tolvanen and Nick Cousins.
Hynes had this to say about his forward line combinations for tonight's game: "We've just felt like there was some good chemistry between [Filip] Forsberg, [Mikael] Granlund and [Viktor] Arvidsson for a couple games. I think Granlund's looked good in the middle, so we'd like to keep them together for chemistry purposes. Then, [Matt] Duchene's line has played very well with [Calle] Jarnkrok and [Rocco] Grimaldi; seems like that's been a few games now they've played very well, have some good chemistry, and now you have Joey, and that gives you an opportunity to put a really good centerman with Tolvanen and Cousins with Tolvy being a shooter and Johansen's ability to move the puck. So, we haven't tried a look like that. And then we just bumped [Erik] Haula to the left side with [Colton] Sissons and [Luke] Kunin. So, rather than kind of disrupt all the lines, we felt like coming off a couple of games where we felt like we played really well, particularly Saturday night, rather than move things around, keep some lines that were playing really well together and see if we can get four lines all going at that same pace."
Below is Preds projected lineup based on Tuesday's morning skate:
Projected Lineup: Predators at Red Wings
Vanderbilt Health Projected Lineup: Ryan Johansen (IR) Set to Return to Action Tonight
