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Posted at 1:00 PM EST.

8:05 PM EST. OT included. Just when things were starting to look up for the Arizona Coyotes, they’ve lost another forward to a long-term injury. Derek Stepan will be out four to six weeks with a lower-body injury. This has been an incredible season in terms of injuries for the Coyotes, who have seen Jason Demers, Antti Raanta, Christian Dvorak, Nick Schmaltz, Jakob Chychrun, Michael Grabner and others all miss extensive time. Despite that, the team has stuck around in the “turtle race” that is the Western Conference wild card competition, and sit just one point behind the Minnesota Wild for the final playoff spot. Their five-game winning streak has given them a 31-28-5 record on the season. Losing Stepan is a tough break for the team given how heavily they have relied on him of late. Stepan has logged at least 21:27 of ice time in five of his last six games heading into Thursday’s matchup that he exited early, including a season-high 24:25 on Tuesday evening. While he only has 32 points on the season, the team relies on him heavily in the defensive zone and on both special teams. The market has largely ignored the injuries here for two reasons, one the ‘Yotes are winning and two, the opposition tonight is the Red Wings.

You see Arizona’s 5-2 win over Vancouver on Thursday? Arizona was out-chanced 23-18 and outshot, 39-24. In its recent 4-1 victory over Winnipeg, same thing. Arizona was badly outplayed, out-chanced and outshot. Darcy Kuemper has caught fire for a few games and while the Coyotes are winning, they’re not performing well but once again, all the market sees is results. The Arizona Coyotes cannot be favored in this range.

Speaking of recent results, the Red Wings are coming off an 8-1 loss to Montreal. What you may not know about that game is Montreal scored those eight goals on 32 shots. Furthermore, Detroit had five power-play opportunities while Montreal had zero. In fact, Detroit has taken a mere 11 minors over their past seven games. Perhaps bad teams find ways to lose and good teams find ways to win but we’re not conceding that the Red Wings are a bad team. We’ve liked this team from the start of the year and are suggesting they’ve been on the wrong side of extreme puck luck.

The Red Wings lead the league in one-goal losses by a wide margin. After its 3-2 loss to the Wild last week, Detroit has an incredible 23 one-goal losses. The had the Sharks by the throat prior to that lopsided loss to the Habs but again, three deflected pucks found the back of the net and the Sharks turned a 3-1 deficit into a 5-3 win (San Jose added an empty-metter). Detroit was taking back +170 that day. The Red Wings have had a few days to dissect that loss to Montreal but it was just a bad day between the pipes. Nothing more, nothing less. The Red Wings have not quit and will relish the role of the spoiler. What some folks may or may know is that Detroit has called up elite prospect Filip Zadina and he’ll team up with Andreas Athanasiou and Tyler Bertuzzi in what figures to be a dynamic line. That’s not even the Red Wings top line. Detroit was recently a -122 underdog in Buffalo and a -112 home favorite over Minnesota among others and now, because they have lost five in a row, the Red Wings are taking back an incredibly inflated price the game after being destroyed 8-1. Red Wings will play tonight and will very likely have a good chance to win.   

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