Zetterberg will return Friday night as 'Wings host Caps

As far as the National Hockey League is concerned, stars don't get much brighter than Alex Ovechkin - but when the league's leading goal scorer leads his Washington Capitals into Detroit on Friday night, they'll be face-to-face with HockeyTown's brightest star.

Henrik Zetterberg has skated the past two days and is expected to center the Red Wings' top line as both teams look to get back on track after taking ugly losses in each of their last matches.

The Red Wings are winless since Zetterberg tweaked his back against Montreal last Friday, and says that it's different from the herniated disc that kept him out of most of the month of December: “We’ve done everything we could so it doesn’t get worse and now just hopefully stay on this path and it keeps getting

better,”

After getting spanked by the Flyers in Philadelphia on Tuesday, the hot-and-cold Red Wings sit at 23-19-11, just one point behind the Ottawa Senators for 8th seed in the Eastern Conference, so getting their top player back give the team and their fans optimism, particularly heading into the Olympic Break...

...for if there is a team that would benefit for the three week shutdown to get their players healthy, it is the Red Wings.

“Had a good day today; it’s fun to skate again,” Zetterberg said. “Hopefully I’ll feel good tomorrow after the morning skate and we’ll go from there.”

Zetterberg is scheduled to play for the Swedish National Team in Sochi, so long as his back holds up, while teammate Johan Franzen has already been ruled out of the games with a concussion - bad news for Franzen, but hopefully good news for the Red Wings.

http://www.sportsinjuryalert.com/2014/01/zetterberg-set-to-return-friday-night.html