PREVIEW: Red Wings begin two-game road trip, visit NHL-leading Avalanche for second half of home-and-home set on Monday  

DENVER -- In the Mile High City to kick off a two-game road trek ahead of the Olympic break, the Detroit Red Wings will try to end a three-game winless skid when they take on the NHL-leading Colorado Avalanche at Ball Arena on Monday night.

“We haven’t met our expectations over the last few nights,” Detroit head coach Todd McLellan said. “But more importantly, some jump, energy and better execution. If we have that, then we give ourselves a chance to have a response. We’ll be looking for that, and looking for it early, in the game.”

Monday’s 9 p.m. ET/7 p.m. MT puck drop (broadcast coverage on FanDuel Sports Network Detroit and 97.1 The Ticket in Detroit) between the old rivals comes after the Red Wings (32-18-6; 70 points) were shut out by the Avalanche (36-8-9; 81 points), 5-0, at Little Caesars Arena on Saturday.

“It makes it a little bit easier for some of the coaches on the staff, because your pre-scout in already done,” McLellan said of facing Colorado for the second time within a three-day span. “You can look at what happened last game and makes some adjustments, but this is obviously a big challenge. There’s not a lot of teams that come into this building and win, so we can’t look at the end result. We can’t start there and then work backwards. We have to look at everything we put into the game, then we’ll look up at the end of the night and see where we are.”

Detroit is certainly motivated to put its last game behind them, and Axel Sandin-Pellikka said the group has a great chance to do so thanks to the short period of time between contests.

“We have a little better look at how they are, but so do they on us,” Sandin-Pellikka said. “It goes both ways, but I know we’re better prepared today. We’re going to go out there and play better than we did last time.”

The Red Wings came away with just one point from their three-game homestand -- Saturday’s shutout loss was the finale -- scoring an average of 1.33 goals per contest. This winless skid has also pushed Detroit back a little bit in the standings, as it went into Monday’s slate trailing the Tampa Bay Lighting, who had three games in hand, by four points for first place in the Atlantic Division.

“We have to go out and play,” Sandin-Pellikka said. “The last three games haven’t been what we wanted, get back to the level we were at before and finish this off before the break. It’s going to be important to get some good feeling going into the break.”

Coming off a three-point performance (two goals, one assist) on Saturday, Nathan MacKinnon leads the NHL in goals (40), ranks second in points (91) and is tied for fourth in assists (51) this season. Also for the Avalanche, Devon Toews is set to return to their lineup for the first time since Jan. 3 after being sidelined with an upper-body injury.

The 31-year-old defenseman has collected 13 points (one goal, 12 assists) in 40 games.

“They’re going to get better tonight,” McLellan said. “Toews is going to play, and they’re a very mobile group on the back end. They transition real quick, so if your forecheck game is going to be at all effective, your puck placement better be good and you better have people around it quickly because if you don’t, they’re coming right back at you and now you got to play the whole shift in your end. That’s not conducive to creating any type of offensive confidence."