RECAP: Red Wings take 2-1 loss to Avalanche

DETROIT -- The Detroit Red Wings played solid defensively against the Colorado Avalanche, but couldn’t capitalize on enough of their offensive chances in a 2-1 loss at Little Caesars Arena on Saturday night.

"Very frustrating once again," Moritz Seider said. "You do a lot of good things, but not over a span of 60 minutes. That'll cost you against a really good team."

Allowing three or less goals for the third straight game, goalie Ville Husso stopped 23 shots for Detroit (10-13-4; 24 points), which is winless (0-3-2) in its last five contests. Goaltender Alexandar Georgiev made 29 saves for Colorado (15-13-0; 30 points).

"Probably take our 5-on-5 game tonight against a team like that," Red Wings head coach Derek Lalonde said. "Hold them to two goals, probably out-chanced them fairly good. Just got to do more to find a way to flip some of these games. That's a frustrating one. We got to stay at it."

Detroit trailed Colorado, 1-0, at the end of the first period. The game-opening goal was scored by Valeri Nichushkin at 10:48, who scooped up his own shot that was initially blocked in the right face-off circle and scored with a glove-side strike from the slot.

Cale Makar put the Avalanche up by a pair early in the second period, scoring a power-play goal with a wrist shot from the high slot to make it 2-0 at 2:44.

Scoring his 10th goal of the season and cutting the Red Wings' deficit in half, Lucas Raymond tipped home captain Dylan Larkin’s shot from deep to bring it to 2-1 at 18:13 of the second period.

"The last 10 minutes in the second [period], we found another gear," Seider said. "We kept the lines rolling and kind of dominated there a little bit. Scored a great goal, but then we couldn't really capitalize on the third. Got away from the game a little bit, not really good enough on breakouts. A lot of bad decisions, then the game kind of went by and we couldn't really get going."

Detroit came close to scoring the game-tying goal as time wound down late in regulation, but Georgiev weathered a storm of shots and offensive-zone pressure from the home club after Husso was pulled with 2:36 remaining.

"Our margin of error is extremely thin right now," Lalonde said. "We can't lose moments in the game. Probably some moments in the third [period] where we just lost some shifts, and couldn't get things rolling."

Overall, each of Detroit's last seven losses have been decided by one goal, leading to a collective feeling of frustration by the players and Lalonde, who are determined to snap out of this current funk.

"I think no one is happy in the locker room," Seider said. "Why should we [be]? We're losing games that are winnable, and we just can't find ways to get it done. Obviously, that's really frustrating. We shouldn't be lying to ourselves. We need to be better, but that shouldn't drag us down. We come to the rink with a big smile tomorrow, get ready to work and play two opponents that are really close."

NEXT UP: The Red Wings will look to get back in the win column when they visit the Buffalo Sabres at KeyBank Center on Monday night.

POSTGAME QUOTES

Lalonde on Detroit's winless streak

"You go through these stretches, this has been a unique one. We had that stretch last year, and we were bad. We earned that losing streak. This just feels a little different, but bottom line is we got to do more to flip these games."

Compher on what the message needs to be in the dressing room

"You have to stick together. A lot of frustrated guys in the room. It's got to be our group of guys to find our way out of it. It's there for the taking. A lot of games, it's right there, but's got to be the guys to step up and get the job done."

Compher on how Colorado limited Detroit offensively to start the third period

"It's something we can learn from, what they did in the third. It's a close game and they're only up a goal. I think we've had opportunities in the last few weeks to get up another level in the third period. It's a one-goal game either way. They stayed aggressive on us. We just didn't execute well enough to get out of our zone quickly."