Eurolanche

Avalanche at Red Wings

The Game

The Detroit Red Wings will seek their third straight win when they host the Colorado Avalanche at Little Caesars Arena on Sunday. The Avalanche have lost four of their past five games, include a 5-2 defeat against at the Nashville Predators on Saturday.

They've allowed 21 goals over that stretch. The Red Wings, who have gone 6-2-1 after a six-game losing streak, will have defenseman Danny DeKeyser back in the lineup. DeKeyser has missed 17 games because of a fractured ankle sustained while blocking a shot in a 4-2 loss to the Dallas Stars on Oct. 10.

Players to watch

Avalanche center Alexander Kerfoot had two assists Saturday and has nine points (four goals, five assists) in his past six games. Kerfoot, a rookie, has 15 points (seven goals, eight assists) in his first 18 NHL games.

Red Wings goalie Jimmy Howard has allowed three goals or fewer in 14 of 15 starts this season. Howard will make his fourth straight start.

They said it

"We've got to reset. There's a lot of good things we did [Saturday], we'll show them some of them, and there's some areas we've got to improve. Our power play's been really good lately, they let us down [Saturday]. Our penalty kill, kind of the same thing. We just reset and go at it [Sunday]." -- Avalanche coach Jared Bednar

"I'm excited to get back in there. The foot's feeling really good and I got some good skates in this week." -- Red Wings defenseman Danny DeKeyser

Avalanche projected lineup

Gabriel Landeskog -- Nathan MacKinnon -- Mikko Rantanen

Colin Wilson -- Alexander Kerfoot -- J.T. Compher

Matt Nieto -- Carl Soderberg -- Blake Comeau

Sven Andrighetto -- Dominic Toninato -- Nail Yakupov

Samuel Girard -- Erik Johnson

Mark Barberio -- Tyson Barrie

Nikita Zadorov -- Andrei Mironov

Jonathan Bernier

Semyon Varlamov

Scratched: Gabriel Bourque, Chris Bigras Injured: Anton Lindholm (broken jaw), Patrik Nemeth (lower body), Tyson Jost (lower body), Vladislav Kamenev (broken arm)

Status report Barrie returned Saturday after missing one game because of an upper-body injury. … The Red Wings returned defenseman Brian Lashoff to Grand Rapids of the American Hockey League on Saturday. Stat pack Mironov had two points Saturday, including his first NHL goal. … Larkin has 10 points (three goals, seven assists) in his past nine games.

--by Dave Hogg / NHL.com--