Wings to dress seven defensemen against Predators

With forwards Daniel Alfredsson and Stephen Weiss still sidelined by groin injuries, the Detroit Red Wings are expected to go with seven defensemen Tuesday when they host the Nashville Predators at Joe Louis Arena.

Brendan Smith, who had been out with a shoulder injury and last played Nov. 2, will return to the lineup.

Alfredsson will miss his third straight game, while Weiss will miss his fifth in a row. MLive.com reported Weiss probably also will miss the game Thursday against the Carolina Hurricanes.

"I got through practice and I felt pretty good,'' Weiss said. "It's just a matter of getting a couple more in to get the conditioning back and hopefully I'll be ready to go. … Hopefully sometime this weekend, maybe Saturday or Sunday. I would like to play [Tuesday], but it's not my call.''

Detroit will attempt to snap a seven-game home winless streak (0-1-6) that dates to Oct. 15. They're 0-1-5 in their past six overall.

Here's how the lineups could look for the Predators and Red Wings:

PREDATORS

Gabriel Bourque - David Legwand - Viktor Stalberg

Colin Wilson - Mike Fisher - Patric Hornqvist

Nick Spaling - Matt Cullen - Craig Smith

Rich Clune - Paul Gaustad - Matt Hendricks

Roman Josi - Shea Weber

Seth Jones - Kevin Klein

Victor Bartley - Ryan Ellis

Marek Mazanec

Carter Hutton

Scratched: Mattias Ekholm

Injured: Eric Nystrom (upper body), Filip Forsberg (upper body)

RED WINGS

Henrik Zetterberg - Pavel Datsyuk - Todd Bertuzzi

Johan Franzen - Darren Helm - Tomas Tatar

Daniel Cleary - Joakim Andersson - Mikael Samuelsson

Drew Miller - Justin Abdelkader

Niklas Kronwall - Jonathan Ericsson

Kyle Quincey - Danny DeKeyser

Brian Lashoff - Jakub Kindl

Brendan Smith

Jimmy Howard

Jonas Gustavsson

Injured: Stephen Weiss (groin), Daniel Alfredsson (groin)