Good news for Larkin but bad news for Athanasiou ahead of tonight's preseason game.

The Detroit Red Wings are set for a preseason tilt against the Pittsburgh Penguins, but they will not have their full complement of National Hockey League regulars on their roster for the game. 

Now to be clear it is perfectly normal for teams in the NHL to hold core players out of the preseason in order to give them extra rest, extra time to recover from minor ailments, or for a host of other reasons, but sometimes players are also held out because they are unable to go. That appears to be the case for at least 2 of Detroit's core roster players, with the Red Wings Dana Wakiji reporting that both men are now set to miss tonight's preseason contest.

According to a report from Dana Wakiji it appears as though Red Wings forward Andreas Athanasiou has suffered some form of minor injury and will be held out of the game as a result. There has been no indication regarding what type of injury it is that might be ailing Athanasiou, however Wakiji reports that Athanasiou "tweaked something" during training camp. This would appear to indicate that the injury is very minor in its nature, however it will be worth keeping an eye out on Athanasiou to see how long he remains out of the lineup for as a result of this problem.

Additionally the Red Wings will be without veteran forward Justin Abdelkader for both the contest against the Penguins this evening, as well as for the match up against the New York Islanders which is set to take place this upcoming Monday. Abdelkader has been practicing with the team, which is a good sign for the Red Wings to be sure, however the fact that the Wings feel comfortable ruling him out of games several days in advance would indicate that he still had a ways to go before making a return to live game action.

It was not all bad news for the Red Wings however, Wakiji is also reporting that Detroit Red Wings' head coach Jeff Blashill has informed her that Red wings star forward Dylan Larkin is set to go for tonight's game against the Penguins. This means that the Wings will have arguably their best offensive weapon in the lineup when they take on the Penguins, the Penguins however might not have their top offensive weapon with captain Sidney Crosby being held out of practice on Saturday after having already missed every preseason game thus far.