Daily Sports: Detroit-Chicago Keys Monday Night TV

It’s a night off in the NBA playoffs tonight, as Memphis-San Antonio resume their Western Conference Finals matchup on Tuesday, and Miami-Indiana don’t start in the East until Wednesday. That allows the NHL to be the focal point of the daily sports menu on Monday.

The Chicago-Detroit series goes to Motown with the series tied 1-1 and the folks in the Windy City undoubtedly feeling a bit nervous—they are the heavy favorite, but Detroit’s a got a history and it’s not one that makes Chicago fans comfortable. Game time is 7:30 PM ET on the NBC Sports Network.

ESPN has Monday Night baseball and a key series starts in the AL East, with the New York Yankees in Baltimore to play the Orioles. The Birds are slumping, having lost three straight to Tampa at home over the weekend and need to plant their feet and win this series at home. Baltimore has even picked up veteran Freddy Garcia to help their rotation and he’ll pitch tonight against C.C. Sabathia. The game starts at 7 PM ET.

Two other series openers to keep an eye on would be Oakland-Texas and Washington-San Francisco. The A’s have to prevent the Rangers from running away and hiding from the rest of the AL West, and the Nats-Giants series is a possible NLCS preview between two teams with great pitching. On a completely off-the-wall note is it possible that these two cities could have their teams meet in both the NLCS and the NFC Championship Game?

Which provides a segueway into football and a fun historical feature tonight on the NFL Network. The epic 1981 NFC Championship Game between the San Francisco 49ers and Dallas Cowboys—where Joe Montana started to write the NFL version of his legend—will be shown at 8 PM ET. And on ESPN2, a 30-for-30 feature will look at the 2004 ALCS and the Boston Red Sox historic comeback against the New York Yankees.

TheSportsNotebook will have NHL analysis later this morning, as we overview all four second-round series. Also be sure and check the conference finals previews that were the NBA commentary here yesterday, and take a look at MLB coverage, something that we’ll give a double dose to this week, with All-Star ballots being added to the normal team features run here.