Chris McCosky

Red Wings' offense is productive so far

You're asking for trouble if you have to give up two goals or fewer in order to win these days, but the Red Wings don't seem overly concerned about it.

"I thought we could've scored six goals in our last game (Washington)," goaltender Chris Osgood said. "I thought we've been snakebit a little bit this year, hitting posts and missing some great opportunities. We are going to have a breakout game soon where we score a lot of goals."

The Wings have scored three goals in each of their four games. That statistic normally would be unremarkable this early, except the Wings are playing without four of their top 10 scorers from a year ago -- Marian Hossa, Mikael Samuelsson and Jiri Hudler (playing elsewhere), and Johan Franzen (out, knee).

"We still have a lot of guys who can score," Osgood said. "(Darren) Helm and Abby (Justin Abdelkader) have scored goals in the playoffs before so there's no reason they should go into games thinking they can't score. This is their opportunity to have a breakout season, to put a stamp on their careers."

The line combinations, redrawn after Franzen's injury, have only one game under their belts. But the top two lines -- Henrik Zetterberg-Pavel Datsyuk-Todd Bertuzzi and Ville Leino-Valtteri Filppula-Danny Cleary -- did show some signs of coming alive against the Capitals last weekend.

"No, we don't feel like there's pressure on us to hold teams to two goals a night," captain Nicklas Lidstrom said. "But that's something we've talked about and it's something we've been able to do in the past. We want to continue to play well defensively. ... If we can keep it at two or lower, that would be great."

Helm back?

Coach Mike Babcock has some decisions to make before tonight's game in Buffalo.

Helm (shoulder) appears to be ready to play.

"I think Helmer is ready to go," Babcock said. "If Grand Rapids (AHL) was playing today, he'd be playing in Grand Rapids today. But now we would have to wait until the weekend. We'd like to get him in (before that)."

If Babcock decides to play Helm, then Kris Draper will be scratched.

Babcock also has to decide whether to play Kirk Maltby or Patrick Eaves , though from the sound of it, he's leaning toward Eaves.

"There's competition there (on the third and fourth lines) and that's a real positive thing," Babcock said.

Helm has been skating in all the drills for the past week or more. The only question is how the shoulder will hold up when he gets hit at game speed.

"I feel like I can play; I think I am ready," Helm said. "We did some more contact things today and there was no pain."

Practice crash

There was a nasty collision between Maltby and Abdelkader during a practice drill Monday. Both went down hard.

The players never saw one another until it was too late. Maltby got the worst of it, suffering a deep bruise in his right thigh. He's questionable for tonight.

chris.mccosky@detnews.com (313) 222-1489