Blashill confirms the Red Wings are down 2 players tonight.

The Detroit Red Wings will have to make due without one of their young rookies as well as one of their established veterans tonight when they face off against the Buffalo Sabres.

On Friday both rookie forward Joe Veleno and veteran defenseman Danny Dekeyser were notably absent from the Red Wings practice, and now Jeff Blashill has confirmed that neither player will be available for tonight's game.

Dekeyser is currently on the National Hockey League's Covid protocol list and will only be eligible to return once he has had 2 consecutive negative tests. Given that Covid cases have varied wildly from player to player, it is impossible to gauge when Dekeyser might return to action.

In the case of Joe Veleno, the young forward was injured during the second period of Wednesday's game against the St. Louis Blues. It is still unclear exactly how he got hurt, but Blashill did confirm that he would be out of the lineup this evening as a result of an upper body injury. This will be the first game that Veleno has missed for the Red Wings as a result of this injury, and thus far there's been no word on how long he might be out either.