SUMMARY: The Red Wings suffer a 2-1 loss to the Avalanche

DETROIT – The Detroit Red Wings played solid defensively against the Colorado Avalanche, but were unable to capitalize on their offensive opportunities in a 2-1 loss Saturday night at Little Caesars Arena.

“Once again very frustrating,” said Moritz Seider. “You do a lot of good things, but not over a 60-minute period. That will cost you against a really good team.”

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

“We’ll probably win our 5-on-5 game tonight against a team like that,” Red Wings head coach Derek Lalonde said. “I held them to two goals and probably outscored them pretty well. I just need to do more to find a way to turn some of these games around. This is frustrating. We have to stick with it.”

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

Cale Makar gave the Avalanche a two-point lead early in the second period and scored a power-play goal with a wrist shot from a high position to make it 2-0 at 2:44.

Lucas Raymond scored his tenth goal of the season and cut the Red Wings’ deficit in half by redirecting home captain Dylan Larkin’s shot from distance at 18:13 of the second period, making it 2-1.

“In the last 10 minutes of the second (period) we found another gear,” Seider said. “We kept the ranks going and dominated there a little bit. We scored a great goal but then we couldn’t really capitalize on the third. We got out of the game a little bit, not really good enough at breakouts. A lot.” “If we make bad decisions, the game flies by and we don’t really get going.”