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The Detroit Red Wings will welcome the return of right-winger Tomas Jurco as they face the Tampa Bay Lightning on the road Thursday in a showdown for top spot in the NHL’s Atlantic Division.
“I was getting better every day and I think I’m ready tonight, said Jurco, out since Jan. 7 with a disc problem in his back. “I’m excited to get back.”
Jurco will skate on the fourth line with Drew Miller and Joakim Andersson and his first goal is simply to get his feet back under him and grow accustomed again to the flow of play.
“The first couple of games I’m just going to try and get back into it,” Jurco said. “Just play hard. I’m going to try and play physical. Just try to help out and put a little offense in.”
He’d gone 18 games without a goal prior to his injury Jan. 6 at Edmonton, but Jurco tried not to focus on his goal drought.
“I always want to score,” Jurco said. “It just didn’t go in for me.
“I think I was getting better at other things what Babs (Detroit coach Mike Babcock) wants from me. I was doing what he wanted from me. I’ve been focusing on that.
“Now I’ve got to do both of them, scoring and doing what he wants. It’s going to take me some time, but hopefully after I come back it’s going to get better.”
From Babcock’s perspective, what Jurco needs to do to succeed is merely utilize his 6-1, 203-pound frame and his speed afoot to his advantage.
“He’s a big guy who can really skate,” Babcock said. “This game should be going 100 miles an hour.
“He’s a guy who has to become a heavy forechecking puck-possession guy who plays great defensively but is one of the workers with top-six forwards if that makes sense. That’s what he’s got to become.”
Jurco for Daniel Cleary is the only lineup change from the team that posted a 5-4 win Tuesday over Florida.
Early Showdown
First pace in the division may be on the line, but the finish line remains a long way away, so no one is putting too much stock into Thursday’s outcome.
“It’s good to be here,” Babcock said. “Obviously you want to test yourself. We’ve won but we haven’t played as good as we need to play.
“Ideally this will get our attention and we’ll buckle down and play the right way. You’ve got to play right to have success night in and night out, so we need to get our game back.”
Babcock admitted he’s somewhat surprised to see his team atop the standings.
“For sure, I said this a number of times, if you would have asked me on July 5 where we’d be, I didn’t think we’d be near where we’re at,” Babcock said. “People can tell you different but all the experts said we weren’t going to make the playoffs and I thought ourselves we weren’t sure.
“So we had great growth on our team. Our team has gotten better and we’ve got to keep getting better.”
Familiar Foes
Ten members of the Wings and nine players from the Lightning skated in the 2013 American Hockey League Calder Cup final, when Detroit’s Grand Rapids Griffins farm club toppled the Syracuse Crunch, farm team for Tampa Bay, in a six-game set.
That minor-league matchup has helped fuel a major-league rivalry between the two teams.
“I think so, especially since we played against them in the Calder Cup final and got to know them, playing against them and scouting them,” Detroit right-winger Gustav Nyquist said. “Obviously they’ve got I don’t know how many players, but a lot of their players were on that (Syracuse) team. Real good players who’ve had great years, so it’s an exciting matchup.”
Other current Red Wings who played in that series were Tomas Tatar, Petr Mrazek, Danny DeKeyser, Tom McCollum, Riley Sheahan, Andersson, Brian Lashoff and Luke Glendening.
Current Lightning who performed in the set included Tyler Johnson, Brett Connolly, Ondrej Palat, Radko Gudas, Alex Killorn, J.T. Brown, Cedric Paquette, Mark Baberio, and Andrej Sustr. Tampa Bay coach Jon Cooper was behind the bench for Syracuse.
“A lot of guys played against us for Syracuse when we won the Cup,” Jurco said. “We always thought they had a great team and they’re doing really well this year so it’s going to be a great game.”
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