Z on Bertuzzi and Tonight's Lineup

Helene St. James of the Free Press got Zetterberg's thoughts on his new linemate...

"It's going to be fun to play with Bert," Zetterberg said Thursday. "He's a great player. I've played against him many times, and he's strong with the puck and is really skilled and a big guy. Most of the time with Todd, when he gets the opportunity he puts it away. Now I'll probably be the setup guy a little bit more. That's what happened last year when I didn't play with Pav as much."

You can almost here a hint of pain in his voice, even though it's only in text form. I'm thinking Zata is a little disappointed that he won't be playing with Pasha. You can just see the enjoyment those two have while on the ice together. But Babcock doesn't want them playing in the same sandbox, not at the same time anyway...**sigh**

When Babcock was asked about Pav's line with Johan Franzen and Thomas Holmstrom, he had this poetry to offer:

"It's a work in progress. We'll see if there's any chemistry. Last year, we came through the exhibition season all concerned about Pav's line because it didn't do nothing all through exhibition season and then it promptly led us and the other lines didn't do nothing. I'm not too worried about that -- I'm more worried about structure and how hard we play."

Um...ok, Mike. Whatever you just said.

Here's your lineup for tonight against the New York Rangers:

Cleary-Zetterberg-Bertuzzi

Williams-Filppula-Leino

Ryno-Abdelkader-Maltby

Ritola-Emmerton-Mursak

Kronwall-Janik

Stuart-Lebda

Meech-Kindl

Osgood

McCollum