As the coaching staff weighs the best lineup to present on a game-by-game basis, defenseman Ryan Sproul has not made the cut for the past week.
The Detroit Red Wings host the Philadelphia Flyers on Sunday at Joe Louis Arena ( 5 p.m., FSD), facing one of the better teams in the NHL at limiting shots against. To that end Sproul makes sense, because he’s one of the more shot-mentality oriented skaters on the team.
He ranks fifth with a 2.1 shots-per-game average, doing so even as he has only made 14 appearances. He has one goal and four assists in that span, still making him third in defensive scoring behind Danny DeKeyser (six points) and Mike Green (16 points), both of whom have played twice as many games.