Pittsburgh (41-23-8) had a two-game winning streak snapped with Sunday’s 5-2 loss to the New York Rangers, but the team has played well lately, going 4-2-0 in its past six games.

Of course, the team is still playing without Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin, which complicates matters. While Malkin is done for the year, there have been some positive signs regarding Crosby’s situation. The superstar has been out since early January, but he finally resumed skating this week. Even so, there’s no timetable for his return.

In the meantime, everyone else has been asked to step up. It worked in Tuesday’s 5-1 win over Ottawa, as five players put the puck in the net. There was no such luck against the Rangers, though, with only Jordan Staal and Chris Kunitz tickling the twine. Losing Crosby and Malkin has completely obliterated the club’s power play; Pittsburgh was 0-for-3 against the Rangers, dropping the team to just 2-for-43 in their past 13 games.

Detroit (43-21-8) opened March with a four-game losing streak, but the club quickly rebounded with four straight victories. The Red Wings are back in the losing column, though, after falling 3-1 to Nashville on Saturday.

It’s hard to blame the Red Wings, though, as they were down to just 17 skaters and only 11 forwards. Pavel Datsyuk (57 points), Johan Franzen (51 points) and Jiri Hudler (32 points) each missed the game with injuries or illness. None of them are suffering too badly, though, and there’s a good chance they’ll be back in action on Monday.

Even without a chunk of talent up front, Detroit managed to pepper the Predators with 39 shots. Unfortunately, Pekka Rinne has Detroit’s number—the Preds goalie has stopped 108 of the last 110 shots he’s faced against the Wings.

There was some good news despite the loss. Dan Cleary ended a scoring drought by scoring a power-play goal in the first period. Cleary is second on the Wings with 23 goals this season, but he’d gone eight straight games without finding the back of the net. Even with that goal, Cleary has just two points in his past nine games.

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