PITTSBURG, Pa. (Michigan News Source) – After a week off of play for the Christmas, the Detroit Red Wings head to Pittsburgh for a clash with the 19-9-5 Penguins. Detroit is currently 14-11-7 and in fourth place in the Atlantic Division of the Eastern Conference. With 35 points, they are 13 points off of second place Toronto and 21 points behind the Bruins.

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It will be seven days since they last played and taking a 7-4 win over the Tampa Bay Lighting. The win broke their six-game losing streak as Michael Rasmussen had four points. Dylan Larkin and David Perron both had three points which matched their season high. Larkin leads the team in goals (12), assists (19), and points (31) and says about the win over Tampa Bay, “It feels really good! Especially against that team in our division, we had a great performance. Things didn’t go our way the whole game, but we responded at every moment and stuck together. We played hard, did a good job on the penalty kill and it was just a massive two points for our hockey team.”

Detroit received an extra couple of days for rest after their December 23 game vs. Ottawa was moved to February 27 due to severe weather. Player Andrew Copp said, “We’re gonna need to take advantage of the rest when we get it. It’s going to be a dog fight all the way through the deadline and to the end of the regular season.”

Head coach Derek Lalonde likes the extra couple of days of rest for his forwards on the team. He says, “Maybe you wanna get right back and play, but at the same time, we have four to five guys unavailable to us who may be available when we play them (Senators) again. You take it all in stride.”

Detroit will be in Pittsburgh on Wednesday night and then Buffalo on Thursday night before being back at home on New Year’s Eve to face Ottawa at 7:00 p.m. Detroit played Pittsburgh in an exhibition on October 3 winning, 3-2.