NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman was on hand this morning to announce that the Red Wings will host the Maple Leafs at Michigan Stadium in Ann Arbor, Mich., on New Year’s Day for the 2013 NHL Winter Classic. The news was announced at Comerica Park, home of the Detroit Tigers in downtown Detroit, where a series of events will also be held on conjunction with the Winter Classic game at The Big House.

“The Red Wings’ tradition of excellence, Detroit’ passion for hockey and the glorious history of the Maple Leafs create a Winter Classic scenario for the ages,” Gary Bettman said. “The meeting of these two Original Six rivals, at this iconic venue, will lift this Winter Classic to incomparable heights. The demand to be there will be so great this event could only be held at the Big House.”

Detroit Red Wings owner Mike Ilitch was on hand for the announcement, as were several current and former members of the Red Wings organization.

“We are honored to host the 2013 Bridgestone NHL Winter Classic® and bring the Hockeytown Winter Festival to our fans,” said Ilitch. “This is one of the greatest sports towns ever and to be able to host this celebration of the sport of hockey will provide a tremendous positive economic impact to our community. We are proud to show the world why we love Hockeytown!”

Detroit will be just the second Western Conference team to host the Winter Classic. The Chicago Blackhawks previously hosted the Red Wings in 2009. This will be the first appearance for a Canadian team in the Winter Classic, and the first time a Western Conference team will play an Eastern Conference team in the event. However, Original Six teams have been widely represented with all but the Maple Leafs and Montreal Canadiens having previously played.

Brian Burke, President and General Manager of the Toronto Maple Leafs, also expressed his excitement for the Leafs to be included in the event.

“The Toronto Maple Leafs and our fans are extremely thrilled to be a part of the 2013 Bridgestone NHL Winter Classic,” Burke said. “The rich hockey heritage of these two Original Six hockey clubs will make for an extremely memorable event played in front of the NHL’s largest crowd ever. The atmosphere and pageantry will be an outstanding spectacle for our sport.”

The actual Winter Classic matchup between the Red Wings and Maple Leafs will serve as a capstone to a week of hockey events that will take place at Comerica Park in Detroit. A rink will be built inside the stadium, stretching from shallow left field to shallow right field, and will host several other events during the course of the week leading up to the Winter Classic on New Year’s Day.

Other events at Comerica Park include:

• All four of the NCAA college hockey games that comprise the Great Lakes Invitational tournament, typically hosted at Joe Louis Arena
• An AHL regular season game featuring the Toronto Marlies vs the Grand Rapids Griffins
• Two regular season OHL games on the same day, a junior doubleheader, with tentative plans calling for the Plymouth Whalers to play the London Knights and the Saginaw Spirit to play the Windsor Spitfires.
• There will also be high school games, youth hockey games, with the showpiece game at Comerica being the Alumni or Legends game featuring Red Wing and Leaf oldtimers/alumni.

The only event to be held at The Big House in Ann Arbor will be the Winter Classic itself. Previously, the University of Michigan and Michigan State University attracted a record-setting crowd of 104,173 when they played outdoors at The Big House in 2010.

Howard admitted recently that he will miss more than the two games that were initially reported thanks to a broken finger sustained against the Vancouver Canucks last Thursday in a 4-3 shootout victory for the Wings. While Howard said there is no timetable for his return, he believes that it could be as many as two weeks, but should be less than the four-to-six weeks doctors estimated.

“I haven’t been told two weeks,” Howard said, “but when they said four-to-six weeks (to heal), I was like there’s no chance I’m going to be out for six. Two weeks sounded right.”

Through the first half of the season, Howard shouldered an incredible load with 44 starts in 54 games. Howard leads the league with 32 wins and has solid stats this year with a 2.03 goals against average and a .924 save percentage.

His backup goalie, Ty Conklin, hasn’t fared as well. In nine games started this season, Conklin has looked inconsistent at best with only three wins with a 3.40 goals against average and a .878 save percentage – some of the worst stats of his career. Granted, with Howard playing so well, Conklin has been relegated to the bench for the most part, but Conklin has missed out on opportunities and failed to capitalize when he does get the nod.

After Howard’s injury last Thursday in Vancouver, Conklin got the start on Saturday night in Edmonton. He was pulled after the first period after surrendering three goals on nine shots against. Joey Macdonald, the Red Wings’ third string goalie, had a strong showing in relief of Conklin and helped the Wings fight back and earn a point in a shootout loss to the Oilers.

That strong showing earned Macdonald the start last night against the Phoenix Coyotes where Macdonald again looked good, but his defense did not. The Wings ended up losing their second straight by a score of 3-1.

The Wings have a .727 winning percentage when Howard starts. That percentage falls to .333 when Conklin starts. Macdonald has looked good in his brief NHL appearances, and he has been playing well for the Grand Rapids Griffins with 11 wins and a 2.63 goals against average along with a .913 save percentage. Still, the Wings may opt to upgrade their backup situation if better options become available before the trade deadline.

Rumors have linked the Wings with Islanders goaltender Evgeni Nabokov, whose $570,000 cap hit would still give the Wings plenty of room to make additional moves. The Wings attempted to sign Nabokov to a deal last year before the trade deadline, but the Islanders claimed his rights off waivers. Nabokov wants to play for a contender, and as an unrestricted free agent at the end of the season the Islanders will likely try to move him. Columbus Blue Jackets backup Curtis Sanford has also been mentioned as a possible target.

If nothing else, Howard’s injury will give the Wings a long look at their backup goaltending situation and allow coach Mike Babcock and general manager Ken Holland to assess their needs in net. For the first time in a long time, the Wings have significant salary cap space to make moves at the trade deadline. While fans would love the Red Wings to pursue a game-changing target such as Shea Weber, Zach Parise or even Alexander Semin, Holland stated that he will be active at the deadline, but will likely look to add complementary pieces to his team instead of pursuing big names. Could one of those complementary pieces be a backup goalie?

Trade rumors are starting to heat up with the trade deadline close approaching. The deadline, Monday, February 27 2012, will be an interesting one as in all years. Teams like the Carolina Hurricanes are nearly out of the playoff contention and are rumored to be looking to deal forward Tuomo Ruutu pictured above. The skilled winger has 14 goals and 21 assists 35 points in his 54 game splayed this season. A concern for teams may be that of his health, only finishing a full season in two of his eight years as a professional. It is rumored that the Detroit Red Wings, Vancouver Canucks and Chicago Blackhawks are all interested.

AP Photo/The Canadian Press, Paul Chiasson

Montreal Canadiens’ Rene Bourque celebrates with Tomas Plekanec after netting a goal in the first period. Bourque was recently acquired in a highly publicized trade that saw Mike Cammalleri being traded after making negative comments about the club.

The Canadiens won by a landslide, a 7 – 2 final score that ran Red Wings’ netminder Jimmy Howard from the net. The win ended the Red Wings 7 game winning streak and has given the Canadiens a little lift as the NHL breaks for the All-Star weekend. Currently sitting in 11th spot in the Eastern Conference, 8 points out of 8th seed, more wins like this one are needed if they hope to make the playoffs.

Dave Sandford/Getty Images

Patrik Berglund of the St. Louis Blues takes a shot which is stopped by Detroit Red Wings’ netminder Jimmy Howard. Howard had 21 saves of the night, allowing only 1 goal in as the Wings beat the Blues by a 3 – 1 score. Must of been those Vaughn pads.

The game had a playoff like atmosphere, and rightfully so. The two teams are some of the top teams in the Western Conference; the Wings currently in 1st place while the Blues in 4th.

The win is the Red Wings’ 17th straight home win—the NHL’s longest single-season streak in 36 years.

AP Photo/Tony Gutierrez

Jiri Hudler of the Detroit Red Wings takes a page out of Henrik Zetterberg’s book as he pulls of a one handed deke on netminder Richard Bachman. Hudler’s goal was the one and only of the shootout which saw the Dallas Stars lose their third game in a row. The Wings, on the other hand, have won 4 games in a row and currently sit on top of a highly competitive Central Division.

Todd Bertuzzi has been on a tear after starting the season off slow. In the first 14 games of the season he had only three points. But he’s turned it on as of late with 20 points in his last 24 games. In tonight’s game he had a goal and two assists and one of the best goals you will see this season as he slid a backhand spin-o-rama past Ryan Miller for the fourth goal of the game. He was pulled seconds later when Darren Helm scored 13 seconds after Bertuzzi. Miller didn’t have a good stretch of hockey between the first and second periods as he allowed four goals in a goal of 6:21 between the first and second periods.

The original problem came about because the Atlanta Thrashers, an Eastern Conference team, moved to Winnipeg where they should be a Western Conference team. Thus, an easy solution for this problem would be to move one team East to replace Winnipeg. That’s likely the route that the Board of Governors will attempt to take with a new realignment plan. But which team should move East?

The Detroit Red Wings, Columbus Blue Jackets, Nashville Predators and Dallas Stars all expressed interest in switching conferences. Of all of these candidates, Dallas is the western-most team, which makes it unlikely that they will move to the Eastern Conference ahead of teams that are physically located further east than Dallas.

Winnipeg would likely join the Central Division, meaning that Detroit, Nashville or Columbus would have to move to accommodate the Jets. Supposedly Detroit was promised a spot in the East if the opportunity came about. But with such a big fan base spread country-wide, several franchises in the West would be reluctant to lose Detroit and the fans they draw when they come to play. Much to the dismay of Detroit fans who have to endure late-night playoff games against Western Conference foe, Detroit probably will not move East any time soon.

This leaves Nashville and Columbus. If Columbus moves, it would make sense to put them in the Northeast Division or the Atlantic Division where they would be physically closer to their division opponents. But this move would create a chain reaction that displaces teams and causes each division in the East to realign until someone can fill the spot vacated by the Thrashers in the Southeast Division – most likely Philadelphia or Pittsburgh, two teams the NHL won’t want to split up thanks to their long standing, in-state rivalry.

The most likely option then would be to move the Nashville Predators directly into the Southeast Division. The Predators are currently the closest team to the other teams in the Southeast Division, and their travel to Florida to face the Lightning or Panthers wouldn’t be any worse than what Washington currently endures. The move would keep the two-conference, six-division format that the players are used to and would keep the same playoff format. Plus, this would be an easy implementation for the league by basically plugging Nashville into Winnipeg’s old spot. There’s no reason why this couldn’t be approved and implemented next season with the schedule makers basically swapping Nashville for Winnipeg on the schedule.

With a complete, league-wide realignment plan vetoed by the NHLPA, the Board of Governors will probably look to make a simple switch that brings one team East and moves Winnipeg West where they ought to be. In terms of travel and location, moving Nashville into the Southeast Division of the Eastern Conference makes the most sense.

Most leagues will punish goals allowed in some capacity. If you’re league does, then you may want to know which teams are more likely to score on any given night.

Eight teams in the league currently score, on average, three or more goals per game. If you’re goalie is facing one of those teams, you can pretty much expect at least three goals to slip through. Those eight teams are:

Boston (3.65)

Philadelphia (3.42)

Detroit (3.26)

Vancouver (3.24)

Chicago (3.20)

Toronto (3.15)

Pittsburgh (3.10)

Ottawa (3.0)

Leagues will also reward or punish goalies based on the number of shots faced. This may be a simple ‘shots faced’ stat, or represent itself in the form of save percentage or goals against average. These five teams lead the league in shots per game:

San Jose (34.8)

Pittsburgh (33.7)

Detroit (33.1)

Chicago (32.7)

Boston (32.5)

You’ll notice that three of the teams on the shots per game list are also on the goals scored per game list. Before starting your goalie against any of those teams, you may want to determine if you will gain more points by facing more shots or lose more points by letting in more goals.

One of the most popular goalie stats in Fantasy Hockey is wins. And, depending on how your league’s point system is set up, goalie wins can make or break your week in head-to-head matchups. So it’s important to know who your goalie is most likely to beat. These next five teams have the most losses in the NHL:

Columbus (24)

Anaheim (22)

Edmonton (21)

Carolina (21)

Calgary (19)

On the other side, these five teams lead the league in wins:

Boston (26)

NY Rangers (25)

Vancouver (25)

Detroit (25)

Chicago (24)

Taking all of these stats into consideration, the four teams that you will likely want to avoid playing your goalie against are the Boston Bruins, Chicago Blackhawk, Vancouver Canucks and Detroit Red Wings. Not only are they likely to beat you, but they are likely to score three or more goals on you as well.

All of these stats are available on NHL.com and can be useful tools when trying to decide whether to play your goalie against a given opponent. Goalie stats are some of the toughest to predict, but having knowledge of these stats can help you determine the best course of action when it comes to goalie plays.

To Detroit.

In five Winter Classic games, the Western Conference has only hosted one. That came in 2009 when the Detroit Red Wings bested the Chicago Blackhawks 6-4 at Wrigley Field. The other four games have all been intra-conference matchups with Eastern Conference teams. Logically, the NHL and NBC should go back West. And Detroit would be the perfect spot to do it.

Cold, gray, and one of the most successful NHL franchises of the past two decades, Detroit would be the perfect setting for the next NHL Winter Classic. Plus, the NHL would have their pick of venues for the annual contest. If they wanted to stay within the confines of the city, Comerica Park, home of the Detroit Tigers, would be a perfect place to set up shop. However, if the NHL really wanted to go big and continue to raise the stakes, they would move west just down the freeway and take the game to Michigan Stadium where they could cram in more than 100,000 spectators while playing the game on one of the most storied football fields in college football history.

So now you have the Detroit Red Wings involved, one of the most popular NHL franchises in recent history, along with one of the biggest venues in the nation. So who does the NHL choose to bring in as an opponent for this event? While the NHL certainly has their pick of the litter, two teams immediately come to mind: San Jose and Toronto.

The Sharks have been a thorn in the side of the Red Wings for several seasons now. The teams have met in the playoffs in each of the past two seasons and both times the Sharks defeated the Wings. Both teams are highly skilled, puck-possession teams with big name talent on their rosters. Plus, finally bringing in a West-coast team could garner the game more attention from West coast fans that have thus far had no reason to really tune into the game.

The other opponent could be the Toronto Maple Leafs and, all things considered, this is the most likely. Not only would a Toronto-Detroit matchup bring together two Original Six teams for one of the biggest NHL events of the year, but it would also finally get a Canadian team involved in the matchup. Plus, Toronto is a four-hour drive to Detroit and tons of fans would be willing to make the trek. The arena would easily be just as many Maple Leafs fans as Red Wings fans.

NHL commissioner Gary Bettman refuses to tip his hand as to whom the next host city and opponent could be, but what he has said might indicate that Detroit could be in the running for the game.

“My guess is it will be played in a place we have not been before,” Bettman said. “So, therefore, in the U.S., you’ve eliminated five locations. You can play with the other 25, play with geography and understand that temperature is a factor…You can eliminate some of the warmer climates. We are not probably going to go back to where we have been.”

That statement also leaves Minnesota, Winnipeg, Toronto, Columbus, New Jersey and several other cities in the running for the game as well. But none of those teams would be as big of a draw as the Red Wings, and none of those host cities could offer a location like The Big House where they could cram in more than 100,000 spectators – something that even Leafs forward Nazem Kadri wants to be a part of.

I think at the Michigan stadium — what does it hold, like 100,000-plus?” said Kadri. “That would be a ridiculous game to be a part of. It would be a dream come true.”

What do you think? Which matchups do you most want to see for next year’s NHL Winter Classic?