With three games left in the regular season, the Wings will be fighting for their playoff lives when they face the New York Titans this Saturday, April 7 at 7:30 p.m. at the Wachovia Center.

Last week at this time, the Wings were in control of their playoff destiny with two critical games on the road against the Toronto Rock and Rochester Knighthawks.  After a lackluster performance against Toronto (a 15-6 loss) and a more respectable, but still equally disappointing game against division-leading Rochester the following night (12-10).

“It’s all about paying the price and for whatever reason we didn’t seem to want to pay them on Friday night,” said Wings GM and Head Coach Lindsay Sanderson.  “There were a lot of perimeter shots and no inside game at all.  That makes it easy for goaltenders when they know that they can play their angles and that teams aren’t going to break the plane and get them moving their feet.  On any given night, if you’re not willing to pay the price in this league, you’re not going to end up with a win.”

With the two losses this weekend, the Wings are just behind the Toronto and the Minnesota Swarm for the last two playoff spots in the East.

“We have to hope that some other teams do us some favors from this point in,” said Sanderson.  “Obviously we weren’t happy about what went on last weekend, but we haven’t go time to think about that.  We’ve got to have a good practice tonight, start thinking about New York and take care of things as they come towards us.”

Head Coach Adam Mueller’s New York Titans are coming out of the opposite situation with a thrilling 11-10 win over the Edmonton Rush.  Former Wing Jeff Spano scored the game winner for New York with just :15 left in the game.

“I think our guys learned some lessons in that game,” said Mueller.  “We were coming off a win and it seemed like in a couple of games this season we were coming off a win and we’d kind of feel full of ourselves.  I think we’re a little different team than back then.  Hopefully we can get a good start in this weekend’s game and keep it up for four quarters.  That’s our goal and we’ll see what happens.”

New York was without the services of forward Casey Powell in last Saturday’s game.  His status for this weekend is still uncertain.

“Casey is going to be game-to-game,” said Mueller.  We should be able to find out in a couple of days if he’ll be ready to go this week.

NOTES:  This Saturday night’s game is Fan Appreciation Night with the first 5,000 fans receiving commemorative team and dance team posters.  The night will also include special prize giveaways throughout the game including autographed jerseys, behind the scenes tour and the opportunity to have dinner with Wings’ President and Owner Russ Cline in Victor’s Club prior to a game in 2008.