Picks: Red Wings will spoil Babcock's return
Welcome to the NHL Daily Picks, where CBSSports.com hockey writers Chris Peters and Adam Gretz share their predictions for select games every day.
Toronto Maple Leafs at Detroit Red Wings, 7 p.m, ET
It’s hard to imagine a more perfect opening night matchup for the Detroit Red Wings.
Not only is it the official start of the Jeff Blashill era as the team’s newest head coach, but they’re also taking on an original six rival when they host the Toronto Maple Leafs. Who just so happen to be coached by Mike Babcock, the man that stood behind the Red Wings bench at Joe Louis Arena for the past 10 years and compiled one of the best coaching resumes in the league, taking the team to two Stanley Cup Finals and winning the whole thing in 2008.
And now he’s back behind the other bench.
Even before Babcock left to join the Maple Leafs Expectations have not been quite as high for the Red Wings in recent years, and there still seems to be a feeling at the start of every season that this could be the year their run of consecutive postseason appearances comes to an end. That really hasn’t changed this season. And every year it proves to be silly.
This is still a quality hockey team that has more than enough skill to compete in the Eastern Conference. Henrik Zetterberg and Pavel Datsyuk (once he returns to the lineup) can still be top-line players in the league, and they have an impressive core of younger players coming along and developing into core players in Gustav Nyquist, Tomas Tatar. Not to mention another wave behind them that includes Riley Sheahan and 19-year-old Dylan Larkin.
They added some offensive punch to their blue line by bringing in Mike Green from the Washington Capitals in free agency and should once again have one of the most potent power play units in the league. If they can get their goaltending situation settled with Jimmy Howard and Petr Mrazek there’s no reason to believe they won’t be right back in the playoffs come April.
Meanwhile, for Toronto, the Mike Babcock era began on Wednesday night with a 3-1 loss to the Montreal Canadiens. The score probably doesn’t tell the whole story about the game because Toronto didn’t play a bad game overall and gave Montreal everything it could handle for the most of the night. The problem for Toronto was the combination of Carey Price being a brick wall in the Canadiens’ net and the Maple Leafs lacking any sort of finishing touch from their forwards. And that’s probably going to be a sign of things to come throughout the season. They will do some good things, they will create some chances, but actually putting the puck in the net is going to be a problem. Pick: Red Wings 3, Maple Leafs 1
The rest of Friday’s picks
New Jersey Devils 3, Winnipeg Jets 2
New York Rangers 4, Columbus Blue Jackets 3
Chicago Blackhawks 5, New York Islanders 3
Los Angeles Kings 4, Arizona Coyotes 1
Mike Babcock makes his return to Detroit on Friday night. (USATSI)
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