Detroit Red Wings: Line Juggling Key To Wings Last Win, Future Success

The Red Wings are hot.

Red hot, if you will.

But on Wednesday, something seemed a little off in the game against the St. Louis Blues.

Heading into the third period of a 3-3 games, coach Mike Babcock decided to do his best clown act and started juggling.

No, not bowling pins or flaming sticks, or even hockey pucks for that matter, but his lines.

The Red Wings were either one period away from failing to win their fourth game in a row and falling to 11-4-1 or breaking the tie and going on to win their fourth in a row and bumping their record to 12-3-1.

As Babcock went on to juggle lines, the team answered by scoring four goals in the period. The four goals came in a span of three minutes and 14 seconds and also included two power-play goals.

Oddly enough, that was the first time this year that the Red Wings scored more than one power-play goal in a game.

To start the third period, Tomas Holmstrom was put down onto the fourth line with Darren Helm and Drew Miller.

Johan Franzen was moved up to the first line with Pavel Datsyuk and Henrik Zetterberg.

As far as the power play units, this is where the biggest changes are coming and matter the most.

After struggling mightily on the power play, Babcock decided to switch it up.

Zetterberg and Datsyuk were broken up and put onto separate units. Zetterberg stays on the first unit but will be joined with Cleary (who has become the teams most lethal scorer) and Jiri Hudler (in a continued attempt to wake him up).

The second line will be comprised of Datsyuk, Franzen and Holmstrom who, along with Stuart on D, were apart of the two power play goals for the Red Wings Wednesday night.

Now, heading into tonight's game against the Minnesota Wild, we shouldn't expect any different.

For tonight's game, the top line will be Datsyuk (who struggled one the faceoff circle Wednesday) centering a line between Zetterberg and Franzen.

The second line will see Justin Abdelkader move up and man the wing with Filppula centering the line with Hudler on the opposite wing.

The third line will stay the same with Todd Bertuzzi, Mike Modano and Dan Cleary.

The fourth line will feature Holmstrom on a line with Helm and either Drew Miller or Patrick Eaves (which will remain to be unknown until closer to game time).

This is the advantage of having a lineup like the Red Wings. The ability of being able to juggle lines and still feature three legit scoring lines and one energy line.

No matter what Babcock does with this lineup, keeping it the same or toying and juggling, the success will continue to come for the Red Wings and teams will fear playing against them.

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