PREVIEW: Detroit opens midweek back-to-back road set in Buffalo on Wednesday

BUFFALO -- Kicking off their first back-to-back set of the 2025-26 season, the Detroit Red Wings will try to extend their winning streak to six consecutive games when they face the Buffalo Sabres at KeyBank Center on Wednesday night.

Detroit (5-1-0; 10 points) and Buffalo (2-4-0; 4 points) will drop the puck at 7:30 p.m., with TV broadcast coverage on FanDuel Sports Network Detroit Extra and TNT in addition to streaming on HBO MAX. Fans can also tune in to 97.1 The Ticket, the Red Wings’ flagship radio station.

“We’re starting to figure out who we are and what works for us,” Red Wings head coach Todd McLellan said. “On the road, you can’t get away with wasting minutes…Sometimes at home, you can get away with that a little bit. On the road, teams make you pay. When the gun goes off, we have to be ready to run.”

Detroit capped a three-game homestand with a 4-2 victory over the Edmonton Oilers on Sunday afternoon, backed by two goals apiece from captain Dylan Larkin and rookie Emmitt Finnie. The Red Wings limited the two-time defending Western-Conference champions to just 11 shots in the first 40 minutes and grabbed momentum with three second-period goals.

“It’s been a good vibe in the group,” Michael Brandsegg-Nygård said. “We just have to keep going.”

Unfortunately, that group was without Patrick Kane (upper body) for practice at Little Caesars Arena’s BELFOR Training Center on Tuesday afternoon. McLellan said the veteran forward, who didn’t play on Sunday, will not travel with Detroit for its midweek back-to-back road set.

“He did skate [on Tuesday], which is a good sign,” McLellan said Kane, who has two goals and three assists in five games this season. “We’ll evaluate him when we get back for the Saturday game.”

McLellan highlighted how a group effort will be needed to replace Kane’s presence on the club’s power play, which entered Wednesday operating at 22.2 percent. During Tuesday’s practice, Marco Kasper was on the top unit alongside Larkin, Lucas Raymond, Alex DeBrincat and Moritz Seider.

“We don’t really know what we have or what it will look like,” McLellan said. “We needed some good practice time, which we had [on Tuesday]. Kasp is there. He is his own player. If we expect him to be Patrick Kane and do some of the things that Patrick does, then we’ll probably be disappointed. But if we view Kasp, if it is him, for what Kasp is and the strengths he has then he can be just fine there. He’ll fill that hole, or whoever goes there will fill that hole. We still expect a high-end performance out of that special team.”

The Sabres have won two of their past three contests, but most recently fell to the Montreal Canadiens, 4-2, at Bell Centre on Monday night.

Zach Benson is on a three-game point streak and leads Buffalo in scoring with six points (all assists). Behind Benson on the club’s early-season scoring leaderboard is Josh Doan (two goals, three assists) and Rasmus Dahlin (five assists), who have five points apiece. And between the pipes, Alex Lyon, who signed a two-year free-agent contract with the Sabres this summer after appearing in 74 games with Detroit from 2023-25, has a 2.55 goals-against average and .924 save percentage with one shutout in six contests.

“There’s definitely a little more emotion than other games, especially because they have such an interesting playing style,” Seider said. “Almost like lingering behind and waiting for easy offense. We need to be prepared and dialed in right from the start.”