Swedish Red Wings Won’t Make Trip to San Jose

The Detroit Red Wings will be without the five Swedish players who earned gold medals in the just-completed Torino Olympics when they visit the San Jose Sharks on Tuesday night, the Detroit Free Press reports.

Tomas Holmstrom, Niklas Kronwall, Nicklas Lidstrom, Mikael Samuelsson and Henrik Zetterberg will instead travel to Stockholm to celebrate their accomplishment in the Swedish capital. They will rejoin the Red Wings before Wednesday’s visit to Anaheim.

Detroit center Pavel Datsyuk and San Jose goalie Evgeni Nabokov, Russian Olympians, are questionable for Tuesday after travel problems have delayed their return. The rest of Detroit’s Olympians are expected to play.

To help counter the shortage of players, the Red Wings called up Tomas Kopecky from the Grand Rapids Griffins.