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A pair of Central Division foes will be back on the ice together at Joe Louis Arena on Friday night for NHL betting action, as the Detroit Red Wings look to exact a bit of revenge on the St. Louis Blues.

The Blues are doing just about everything right at the moment, as they now have 12 points to show for their work in seven games on the campaign. The team now has nine players that have logged at least five points this year, and there just isn’t another team in the league that can make that sort of claim. St. Louis is moving the puck all over the ice and getting chances on the power play, scoring nine goals already with the man advantage in just seven games. What’s scary is that the men leading this team in scoring aren’t the names that you would assume like LW Alexander Steen, LW Andy McDonald, RW Chris Stewart, and RW TJ Oshie. Instead, RW Vladimir Tarasenko has five goals and four assists, D Alex Pietrangelo has a goal and seven helpers, and D Kevin Shattenkirk has a team-high eight assists. Throw in the mix the great play from G Jaroslav Halak and G Brian Elliott, and you’ve got a team that is doing just a ton to win.

G Jimmy Howard has started all six games this year for the Red Wings, and he really has had a mixed bag of results. He was yanked from the first game of the year against the Blues, which is what led to G Jonas Gustavsson getting his first and only action of the campaign. Howard has a 2.77 GAA and a 3-3 mark to start off the campaign, and he is going to have to be better to win a game like this one. C Damien Brunner leads the team with three goals, but the men of the hour are clearly C Pavel Datsyuk and LW Henrik Zetterberg. These two work together quite well, and they each have two goals and a total of 15 points between them thus far early in the campaign. Each has a power play goal, and combined, they are a +8. Seven players have a negative +/- early in the season though, and that definitely is problematic.

Every now and again, you just put a bit extra energy into a game, and that’s what we think the Wings are going to do on Friday. They’ve got a side that can compete with St. Louis, and they were blasted 6-0 at Scottrade Arena just a week ago. It’s payback time in Hockeytown USA.

St. Louis Blues @ Detroit Red Wings Pick: Detroit Red Wings -115