Red Wings not interested in return trip to Tampa

DETROIT -- The Detroit Red Wings don't want to go back to Tampa, so their goal is to close their Eastern Conference First Round series against the Tampa Bay Lightning with a victory in Game 6 on Monday (7 p.m. ET; CBC, CNBC, TVA Sports, FS-F, FS-D).

Detroit leads the best-of-7 series 3-2. Game 7, if needed, would be Wednesday

"We know this is a great opportunity for us to close out the series and we definitely don't want to go back to Tampa and play in a Game 7 with them actually having an advantage," Red Wings defenseman Jonathan Ericsson said. "That matters. So we just have to do whatever we can to win this game tonight."

The winner of the series will face the Montreal Canadiens in the second round. Montreal beat the Ottawa Senators in six games in their first-round series.

The Red Wings have held the Lightning, the highest-scoring team in the NHL during the regular season, to three goals in the past three games.

Red Wings coach Mike Babcock said Monday he heard what Lightning coach Jon Cooper said regarding what Cooper perceived to be the Red Wings' excessive interference.

"I just think at playoff time there's no room," Babcock said. "The most determined team fights through. If you're not determined you can't fight through."

Left wing Justin Abdelkader said Detroit is back to playing the way it was before a late-season slump.

"We have to continue playing the way we're capable of playing and that's good structure and playing together as a unit of five," he said. "I think we're back to where we were playing before the end of the season, before we fell off. We're just trying to take it one game at a time and not look too far ahead or too far back."

The Red Wings expect a raucous crowd Monday.

"It's so much fun to play in front of this crowd when it gets loud like that," Ericsson said. "It gives you goose bumps on the bench. You can't take in everything when you're on the ice here. But when you're on the bench you can actually enjoy a few seconds of the atmosphere. It's unbelievable."

Here are the projected lineups:

LIGHTNING

Alex Killorn - Steven Stamkos - Ryan Callahan

Ondrej Palat - Tyler Johnson - Nikita Kucherov

Vladislav Namestnikov - Valtteri Filppula - Cedric Paquette

Brenden Morrow - Brian Boyle - J.T. Brown

Victor Hedman - Anton Stralman

Jason Garrison - Braydon Coburn

Matt Carle - Andrej Sustr

Ben Bishop

Andrei Vasilevskiy

Scratched: Mark Barberio, Jonathan Drouin, Nikita Nesterov

Injured: None

RED WINGS

Darren Helm - Pavel Datsyuk - Tomas Tatar

Justin Abdelkader - Henrik Zetterberg - Gustav Nyquist

Joakim Andersson - Riley Sheahan - Tomas Jurco

Drew Miller - Luke Glendening - Landon Ferraro

Niklas Kronwall - Jonathan Ericsson

Danny DeKeyser - Kyle Quincey

Brendan Smith - Marek Zidlicky

Petr Mrazek

Jimmy Howard

Scratched: Daniel Cleary, Stephen Weiss, Jakub Kindl, Alexey Marchenko

Injured: Erik Cole (spinal contusion), Johan Franzen (concussion)

Status report: Detroit can win its first playoff series since it beat the Anaheim Ducks in seven games in the first round in 2013. … With the series moving back to Detroit and Babcock having the last change, Datsyuk likely will be matched against Stamkos' line.

Who's hot: Mrazek allowed three goals in Game 4 but had shutouts in Games 3 and 5. … Sheahan has two goals and an assist in the past three games.