Lottery-bound Red Wings, Rangers to face off

In the last month, wins are difficult to come by for the Detroit Red Wings and New York Rangers, and one of the lottery-bound teams will get two points Tuesday when the Red Wings visit the Rangers.

Detroit's 60 points are second-fewest in the Eastern Conference and the Red Wings are 2-9-3 in their last 14 games, with both wins coming against New York teams.

Detroit snapped an eight-game skid March 7 with a 3-2 shootout win over the Rangers, then lost four straight before a 2-1 home victory over the Islanders on Saturday.

"That's why we play hockey, to win games," Detroit goaltender Jonathan Bernier told reporters. "When you see all the guys in this room, they're winners and every hockey player in this league wants to win."

Andreas Athanasiou scored twice in a game the Red Wings were outshot 42-22. Athanasiou has a career-high 26 goals -- including nine in his past 16 games -- amid the possibility of him netting 30.

"It's definitely a good milestone," Athanasiou said after playing his eighth game at center. "If I could do that, that would feel good. It'd feel better if it comes with wins."

Detroit faces seven teams in playoff contention the rest of the way, including contenders St. Louis, Vegas and San Jose in the next three games after Tuesday. Detroit seeks consecutive wins for the first time since Feb. 12-14 and will attempt to break a six-game road losing streak (0-4-2).

New York's 69 points are fourth-fewest in the East. Since a 2-1 win in Carolina a month ago, the Rangers have lost 11 of 13 (2-6-5), a stretch that coincides with scoring slumps by Mika Zibanejad and Chris Kreider before and after the trades of Mats Zuccarello and Kevin Hayes.

Zibanejad leads the Rangers with 28 goals but has one goal in his last nine games and two tallies in his last 14. Kreider is second on the Rangers with 26 goals but has not scored in 10 games and has two goals in his last 20.

The Rangers are returning from a lopsided 0-3-1 road trip against Western Conference opponents. New York opened the trip with a 3-2 overtime loss in Edmonton, but got outscored 14-4 in subsequent losses to Vancouver, Calgary, and Minnesota.

After Friday's 5-1 loss at Calgary, coach David Quinn cited his team's lack of effort for causing some of the goals. Following a 5-2 loss in Minnesota Saturday night, Quinn thought the effort was slightly improved but did not mince words when criticizing his team's struggling power play.

The Rangers took one shot on their two power plays Saturday and have one power-play goal in their last 25 opportunities.

"We've gotta get way more of an attack mentality to our power play," Quinn told reporters. "We get a puck and we're looking to see, 'OK, what are we going to do with it?' instead of knowing what we're going to do with it before we get it. It's something we got to address.

"Obviously after (Friday night), we have to address a lot of things the way we played."

--Field Level Media