Babcock

“At the start of the year, we weren't a good team. We all understood that, but we buckled down and got better. It's been a fun year for us. If you would have asked me before the playoffs, I would've told you the same thing. Then, suddenly you have a little success in the playoffs and it's more fun.” - Mike Babcock

“You’ve got a lot of guys in there with a lot of energy. You can see the excitement on their faces. It is a great time of year for all of us. We’re all enjoying it, having fun.” - Jimmy Howard told Ansar Khan

Howard

.

Babcock

Mike Babcock will go with same lineup that he won with in Game 2.

The lines and pairings were the same this morning as they were in Game 2.

Babcock

Samuelsson

Mikael Samuelsson did not take part in morning skate.

Darren Helm also didn't skate this morning.

Helm

Stalberg

Viktor Stalberg will be back in the Blackhawks lineup after being a healthy scratch for Games 1 and 2.

Coach Joel Quenneville did not say who Stalberg will be replacing.

Quenneville

Don't Change a Thing - Play the same way as in Game 2, the Wings best playoff game this postseason.

Play with Controlled Emotion - The crowd will be rockin' at The Joe tonight. Emotions will be high. Play with intensity but under control.

Take Advantage of Home Ice - Tonight is a perfect opportunity to use home ice as an advantage. Be on the attack. Try to score early and get the big crowd behind the team!

On May 20, 2008

The Red Wings fly home after defeating Dallas Stars in the Conference Final the night prior en route to their 11th Stanley Cup.

(Photo by Bill Smith/Getty Images)

After playing one of their most complete games of the season Saturday, the Wings flew back to Motown with a 4-1 Game 2 victory and a best-of-five series on their hands. Tonight, they'll look to keep the momentum rolling as they try to take a 2-1 series lead over the one-seeded Blackhawks at The Joe.

Welcome to the Detroit Red Wings Game Day Blog, where you can get behind-the-scenes information, thoughts from players and staff, and up-to-date news on anything and everything Red Wings on game day.

You can watch tonight's 7:30 PM game on NBC Sports Network, or CBC/RDS for our Canadian viewers, or tune in on 97.1 The Ticket.

Johan Franzen scores after long pass
Jonathan Ericsson sends a deep pass to Johan Franzen who beats Corey Crawford top-shelf to extend the Red Wings lead to 3-1.

"We were better throughout the whole game...today, we played well for 60 minutes." - Jonathan Ericsson

The Wings said they wanted to put Game 1 in the past; they did that today by beating the Blackhawks in every facet of the game. After going down 1-0 in the first, the Wings ran off four straight in a 4-1 victory to bring the series back home tied at one game a piece.

Thanks for tuning in to our Game Day Blog...tune in Monday for Game 3 at The Joe!

Stars of the Game powered by Ram Trucks are...

1. Damien Brunner (1 Goal)

2. Henrik Zetterberg (2 Assists)

3. Niklas Kronwall (1 Assist)

Watch today's game live online on NBC Sports Live Extra!

Danny DeKeyser	Darren Helm	Mikael Samuelsson	Todd Bertuzzi
DeKeyser (Thumb)	Helm (Back)	Samuelsson (Upper-Body Injury)	Bertuzzi (Healthy Scratch)
Jordin Tootoo	Ian White	Brian Lashoff
Tootoo (Healthy Scratch)	White (Healthy Scratch)	Lashoff (Healthy Scratch)

Henrik Zetterberg	Pavel Datsyuk	Justin Abdelkader
Johan Franzen	Valtteri Filppula	Daniel Cleary
Gustav Nyquist	Joakim Andersson	Damien Brunner
Drew Miller	Cory Emmerton	Patrick Eaves
Niklas Kronwall	Jonathan Ericsson
Kyle Quincey	Brendan Smith
Carlo Colaiacovo	Jakub Kindl
Jimmy Howard