Morning Hits: Red Wings, Coyotes, Blackhawks, Flyers and Leafs

Image by @ManGamesLostNHL – Plotting man-games lost (x-axis) vs quality of players missing (y-axis, based on ice time) for each team

On the Red Wings …

  • Ted Kulfan: Pavel Datsyuk will play tonight, and he’ll be on a line with Henrik Zetterberg and Justin Abdelkader.
  • Ansar Khan: GM Ken Holland said that they won’t have any salary cap issues by activating Datsyuk as Kyle Quincey or Johan Franzen can got on LTIR.
  • Detroit Red Wings: Defenseman Kyle Quincey will have ankle surgery on Saturday and will be out nine to 12 weeks.
  • Ted Kulfan: Brad Richards said he’s been skating more, but can’t say when he’ll be able to return. He’s not concerned as it’s still early in the season.

On the Coyotes …

  • Sarah McLellan: Defenseman Nicklas Grossmann is still day-to-day. Coach Dave Tippett hopes that Grossman is able to skate in the next few days. Grossmann added that he’ll probably go on their road trip.
  • Sarah McLellan: Steve Downie is day-to-day with an upper-body injury.

On the Blackhawks …

  • Chris Hine: Coach Joel Quenneville on trimming their roster when Duncan Keith and Michal Rozsival are ready to return to the lineup: “We’ll be making some hockey decisions and business decisions.” Decision could be coming in the next two days.
  • Chris Hine: Coach Quenneville on if he wants to keep Viktor Svedberg on the roster:  “I could say that, yeah. But will that happen? I’m not sure.”

On the Flyers …

  • Dave Isaac: R.J. Umberger will be out a week or two with a lower-body injury.

On the Maple Leafs …

  • Jonas Siegel: Coach Mike Babcock: “When you’re drafting and scouting my two cents is you draft centres and D-man…that’s what I would do, I’d get D.”

On Guy Boucher …

  • Yahoo Sports NHL: Former Lightning head coach Guy Boucher will be leaving SC Bern after this season, becoming a coaching free agent.