Red Wings at Flames preview

Rittich had 21 saves in a 3-1 win against the Philadelphia Flyers on Tuesday. He is 3-2-1 with a 2.80 goals-against average and .912 save percentage.

Detroit defenseman Danny DeKeyser and forward Adam Erne will be game-time decisions. Each has an upper-body injury. DeKeyser did not play in a 5-1 loss against the Vancouver Canucks on Tuesday. Erne played 11:58. Defenseman Patrik Nemeth, who did not practice Wednesday because of illness, is expected to play.

Jimmy Howard will start in goal for the Red Wings, who have been outscored 10-3 in consecutive losses and are 1-3-0 after winning their first two games.

Players to watch

Red Wings forward Dylan Larkin has seven points (two goals, five assists) in six games to start the season.

Flames forward Johnny Gaudreau has seven points (three goals, four assists) in seven games to start the season.

They said it

"We've seen our power play has been good, our penalty kill has been good, our goaltending has been good when we've been a good team. We need all those things to win. We've [gotten] away from that the past couple games and I expect to get back to that tonight and play a fast game and play our game tonight." -- Red Wings forward Dylan Larkin

"I think we're starting to play to our identity now, playing a fast game. We're transitioning the puck quick. We're not giving up too many chances 5-on-5, which is the way we want to play. It's the way we played last year and we had success. I think we're kind of hitting that right stride now. We just have to keep it going." -- Flames defenseman Noah Hanifin

Red Wings projected lineup

Tyler Bertuzzi -- Dylan Larkin -- Anthony Mantha

Luke Glendening -- Frans Nielsen -- Andreas Athanasiou

Taro Hirose -- Valtteri Filppula -- Christoffer Ehn

Darren Helm -- Jacob de la Rose -- Justin Abdelkader

Trevor Daley -- Filip Hronek

Patrik Nemeth -- Mike Green

Dennis Cholowski -- Alex Biega

Jimmy Howard

Jonathan Bernier

Scratched: Madison Bowey

Injured: Jonathan Ericsson (upper body), Danny DeKeyser (upper body), Adam Erne (upper body)

Flames projected lineup

Johnny Gaudreau -- Sean Monahan -- Elias Lindholm

Matthew Tkachuk -- Mikael Backlund -- Michael Frolik

Andrew Mangiapane -- Derek Ryan -- Sam Bennett

Milan Lucic -- Mark Jankowski -- Austin Czarnik

Mark Giordano -- TJ Brodie

Noah Hanifin -- Travis Hamonic

Oliver Kylington -- Rasmus Andersson

David Rittich

Cam Talbot

Scratched: Tobias Rieder, Michael Stone

Injured: None

Status report

Detroit held an optional morning skate. … Backlund will play after taking a maintenance day and not practicing Wednesday.

Stat pack

Mantha has a Red Wings-best nine points (six goals, three assists) in Detroit's first six games. Bertuzzi has seven points (three goals, four assists). … Lindholm leads the Flames with four goals in seven games.