Tatar Among Five Headed Back to Grand Rapids

Another day, another set of Red Wings prospects headed back down to Grand Rapids. Tomas Tatar, Brent Raedeke, Jordan Pearce, Jamie Johnson and Francis Pare all received word today that they are headed back to the AHL club to start the season, and all are expected to be in the lineup in a couple of hours when the Griffins host a closed scrimmage against the Lake Erie Monsters at Joe Louis Arena.

With five more on the move, the Wings roster now stands at 35 players by my count:

G (3)
Howard, Osgood, MacDonald

D (11)
Lidstrom, Kronwall, Rafalski, Stuart, Ericsson, Salei, Kindl, Meech, Smith, Lashoff, Janik

F (21)
Abdelkader, Cleary, Datsyuk, Eaves, Miller, Hudler, Draper, Zetterberg, Helm, Bertuzzi, Filppula, Modano, Franzen, Holmstrom, Ritola, Owens, Maltby, Mursak, Minard, Emmerton, Andersson

Still no clarity on the Minard injury situation, so for the time being he’ll hang out on the “roster.”

As for the Wings tilt tomorrow against Toronto, the lineups have been released and here’s how it all shakes out:

Forwards
Datsyuk-Zetterberg-Holmstrom
Franzen-V. Filppula-Bertuzzi
Hudler-Modano-Cleary
Maltby/Ritola-Emmerton-Mursak

Defensemen
Lidstrom-Kindl
Stuart-Rafalski
Lashoff-Kronwall

Goalies
MacDonald
McCollum

Apparently, Babbles was going to start Chris Osgood in tomorrow’s tilt, but will instead platoon the Grand Rapids tandem. Let’s hope it goes better than the stink-fest against NY yesterday.