The Red Wings are heading into the weekend with a couple of lineup wrinkles, and one rookie forward is already making memories after his first NHL fight.
JT Compher won’t be back anytime soon. Red Wings coach Todd McLellan said the injured center is still day to day and doesn’t expect him to suit up this weekend.
“JT is still day to day,” McLellan told reporters. “I don’t think he’s going to play on the weekend. He skated before we did this morning, and I haven’t got any feedback yet, but I don’t think he’s going to play on the weekend.”
In goal, Detroit is sticking with John Gibson on Friday against the Seattle Kraken. That will be his fourth straight start. The plan then shifts to Saturday, when Daniil Tarasov is set to make his Red Wings debut in Montreal in the club’s road opener.
“Gibby’s going to start tomorrow,” McLellan said. “Tarasov will get his first opportunity this weekend.”
The setup follows the usual logic of a back-to-back: use Gibson in the game where Detroit has the better chance to bank two points, then hand the second night to the backup. That means Tarasov gets the tougher assignment on the road.
Elsewhere, Emmitt Finnie has already checked a box he’d been waiting on for a while. The Red Wings forward, who played junior with the Kamloops Blazers in the WHL, had never fought until Tuesday, when he dropped the gloves with Ottawa’s Jordan Spence during a line brawl late in the second period of Detroit’s 5-3 win.
“That was my first fight last game,” Finnie said. “I didn’t think it was gonna escalate like it did.
It was pretty fun. The adrenaline was definitely going pretty high after that.
I’ve always talked about wanting to get into a fight. My brother (Marshall), he’s more of a fighter, so I’ve seen him fight growing up and stuff.
I told him I was looking for one, so it was nice to get one out of the way.”
His brother, Marshall, who plays NCAA hockey at Niagara University, was apparently a fan of the result.
“He liked it,” Finnie said. “He’s playing in college hockey right now, so he can’t fight. So he said now he’s a little jealous that I get to fight and he can’t.”
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