Red Wings at Lightning preview

RED WINGS (23-23-9) at LIGHTNING (38-16-3)
7:30 p.m. ET; SUN, FS-D, NHL.TV

The Lightning are coming off back-to-back losses at the Toronto Maple Leafs (4-3 on Monday) and at the Buffalo Sabres (5-3 on Tuesday) after going 7-2-0 in their previous nine games. Tampa Bay still leads the division with an NHL-best 79 points, one point ahead of the Boston Bruins and four points ahead of the Maple Leafs.
Lightning forward Nikita Kucherov leads the NHL in scoring with 72 points (30 goals, 42 assists).
The Red Wings seek their third straight win following a three-game losing streak (0-2-1). Detroit is eight points behind the Carolina Hurricanes for the second wild card into the Stanley Cup Playoffs from the Eastern Conference.
The Red Wings are 0-9-1 in their past 10 regular-season games against Tampa Bay.

Players to watch

Red Wings center Frans Nielsen has seven points (two goals, five assists) in a five-game point streak.
Lightning forward Yanni Gourde has 10 points (five goals, five assists) in a seven-game point streak.

They said it

"The last three games I think we've played really well. The last game against Tampa [Bay], I thought we deserved better results than we got, but we played a good game. We just have to be good on the forecheck, not have any turnovers or overshoot the puck." -- Red Wings forward Tomas Tatar
"Have we played the smartest hockey of late? Maybe not. But that Toronto game, we easily could have gotten points. Buffalo, we put ourselves in a tough situation with penalties. ... Now we've put a little pressure on ourselves to get points in this two-game homestand, and we've got to do it." -- Lightning coach Jon Cooper

Red Wings projected lineup

Anthony Mantha -- Henrik Zetterberg -- Gustav Nyquist
Tomas Tatar -- Dylan Larkin -- David Booth
Darren Helm -- Frans Nielsen -- Justin Abdelkader
Tyler Bertuzzi -- Luke Glendening -- Martin Frk
Danny DeKeyser -- Nick Jensen
Niklas Kronwall -- Mike Green
Jonathan Ericsson -- Trevor Daley
Jimmy Howard
Petr Mrazek
Scratched:Luke Witkowski, Xavier Ouellet
Injured:Andreas Athanasiou (illness)

Lightning projected lineup

Vladislav Namestnikov -- Steven Stamkos -- Nikita Kucherov
Yanni Gourde -- Brayden Point -- Tyler Johnson
Alex Killorn -- Matthew Peca -- Adam Erne
Chris Kunitz -- Cedric Paquette -- Ryan Callahan
Victor Hedman -- Anton Stralman
Mikhail Sergachev -- Dan Girardi
Andrej Sustr -- Braydon Coburn
Andrei Vasilevskiy
Louis Domingue
Scratched:Slater Koekkoek, Cory Conacher, Jake Dotchin
Injured:Ondrej Palat (lower body), Peter Budaj (lower body)

Status report

Point did not participate in the morning skate for body maintenance. If Point cannot play, Conacher will replace him in the lineup. … Athanasiou, who was benched in the third period against Anaheim on Tuesday, is not expected to play.

Stat pack

Zetterberg has six points (one goal, five assists) in his past four games. … Stamkos has 11 points (four goals, seven assists) in his past 10 games.