PREVIEW: Red Wings visit Flyers for crucial Eastern Conference showdown on Thursday

PHILADELPHIA -- Colliding for the second time in the past four days and still neck-and-neck in the race for the Eastern Conference’s second Wild-Card spot, the Detroit Red Wings and Philadelphia Flyers will take the ice at Xfinity Mobile Arena on Thursday night.

“We, like any other team, went to Training Camp and put a foundation in place,” Red Wings head coach Todd McLellan said. “We worked on our game all the way through to get to this spot in the season, and what we have in front of us is an opportunity. It’s up to us to seize it or give it away…Once the equipment is put on and the game starts, we need guys to step up.”

Detroit (39-27-8; 86 points) entered Thursday’s 7 p.m. puck drop (FanDuel Sports Network Detroit; 97.1 The Ticket in Detroit) holding the regulation-wins tiebreaker over Philadelphia (37-25-12; 86 points), though both clubs sat two points behind the Columbus Blue Jackets for that second Wild-Card spot. In their most recent meeting at Little Caesars Arena last Saturday, the Red Wings fell by a 5-3 score to the Flyers.

“They were very effective against us on the power play,” McLellan said. “The penalty kill did their job. There’s a two-goal swing right there, so we’ve obviously looked at some of that. We think that’s important, but they played well. They played the game they normally played, checked well. Didn’t give anything for free and if you earned something, well, then you got to finish it. We didn’t do that until the last 10 minutes of the game in Detroit.”

That loss marked the first of two straight for the Red Wings, followed by Tuesday’s 5-1 setback to the Pittsburgh Penguins at PPG Paints Arena. One bright spot was captain Dylan Larkin’s power-play tally early in the second period, which saw the 29-year-old become the fifth player in franchise history to have six 30-goal campaigns.

Keeping the right mentality and trusting their abilities -- win or lose -- has been a constant focus for this group all season long, but it’s especially important, Justin Faulk said, during this critical stage.

“Obviously, you want to put momentum back to your side and favor as fast as possible,” Faulk said. “Whether that’s the next game or next shift, whatever it is, it’s all kind of the same thing. It’s how do you handle it and prepare to move on to the next one.”

There’s a real sense of urgency across the entire NHL as the calendar turns to April, but McLellan said the Red Wings’ system and identity should already be ingrained so that heightened desperation can complement their style when it matters most.

“If playing with urgency negatively affects our structure and what we do, then we’ve probably done a poor job of putting it in play,” McLellan said. “That’s why you go through all these exhibition games and the first 60 to 70 games because you rely on your structure when it counts. The urgency should already be there in your game, then you take your chances.”

Philadelphia’s three-game winning streak and eight-game road winning streak both ended with a 6-4 loss to the Washington Capitals, who are also still hanging around in the Wild-Card race, on Tuesday.

Notably for the Flyers, netminder Samuel Ersson – he’s 5-0-0 with a 1.46 goals-against average and .933 save percentage in five appearances since the NHL’s Olympic break – will start while Tyson Foerster will return to their lineup after missing 49 contests because of an upper-body injury he sustained in early December.

“We recognize he’s an outstanding player,” McLellan said of Foerster, who was leading Philadelphia with 10 goals in 21 games prior to his injury. “He means a lot to their hockey club and he’s coming back. Usually, those guys that come back after missing that amount of time have a pretty good first or second night and it catches up with them a little bit later on. So, he’ll be a factor, but for us to change our game plan based on one individual coming back in would probably be a mistake.”