The Detroit Red Wings are on a roll, with Wednesday's win over the Tampa Bay Lightning lifting them to six-straight wins. They've outscored their opponents 24-11 over those six games. Their last loss came back on Nov. 17 against San Jose, but since then, they've rattled off wins against Los Angeles, Anaheim, Calgary, Boston, Nashville and the aforementioned Lightning. The only game of those that was a win by a one-goal margin was the 3-2 shootout win over the Bruins, which snapped Boston's ten-game winning streak at that time.
Next, they'll take on the Buffalo Sabres on the road on Friday. The Sabres lost their last outing on Tuesday, a 2-1 loss to the New York Islanders. They've struggled mightily this season, and haven't strung together wins since the beginning of November, when they won four straight. Much of their poor play of late can be attributed to the slew of injuries they've sustained recently. They've been without Ryan Miller (concussion), defenders Mike Weber (upper body) and Tyler Myers (broken wrist), forwards Patrick Kaleta (groin), Tyler Ennis (ankle), Cody McCormick (upper body) and Brad Boyes (right leg). To top it all off, defenseman Jordan Leopold was injured against the Islanders on Tuesday.
For Detroit, their only injury is to Patrick Eaves, who will miss quite a few more games with a broken jaw. Detroit is riding a lot of momentum right now, is healthy, and should be confident with their past record against the Sabres. This is the first of two meetings between the two teams this season, and the Red Wings took the only meeting last season, when Pavel Datsyuk lit the lamp in regulation and again in the shootout in a 2-3 win. Datsyuk has five goals and five assists in Detroit's last six games, as well.
The game is set for 7:30 eastern and can be seen on the NHL Network.