Helm was on the ice with his teammates for the first time during Thursday's morning skate.

DETROIT - It was a month ago today that Darren Helm was upended by Tampa Bay's Nikita Nesterov and suffered a dislocated shoulder.

Helm has been skating with fellow injured players Brendan Smith and Tyler Bertuzzi under the direction of strength and conditioning coach Mike Kadar.

"Each day it's been getting a little bit better and better," Helm said. "It's definitely encouraging and I'm pretty optimistic that I'll be healthy hopefully around the New Year time."

The injury was quite painful to start but that has diminished.

"Like normal day-to-day stuff, it's fine," Helm said. "Just at home with the kids, everything's pretty good. I got to be a little careful if they're getting a little too excited but it's good, normal stuff. Rehab's going well. On the ice, there were a few times it was stinging a little bit. I think the next step is just to get on the ice a little bit more with the guys and start getting into a little bit of contact, I guess."

For now, surgery has not been necessary but has not been entirely ruled out.

"We're going to take six to eight weeks to see if I can rehab," Helm said. "If it feels fine, then I'll play and we'll look at options at the end of the year. I had the same kind of issue three or four years ago, I was able to rehab and play through it and not need surgery at the end of the year. So I'm hoping that we can do the same thing this year and just get through this season and have a really strong offseason of rehabbing and not have to worry about any kind of surgery and just put that behind us."

Helm said he would begin traveling with the team now that they have reached this point.

One thing that has helped distract Helm is his new daughter, Zoey, born a month ago. That makes three daughters for Helm.

"The first two and a half weeks I wasn't really able to hold her a whole lot so that sucked a lot," Helm said. "Now I'm back to doing daddy duties and it's fun."

Less fun for Helm has been watching the team struggle to a 5-5-3 record in his absence.

"It's not easy when the team's losing, whether you're a part of it or not," Helm said. "It might be a little harder when you're not because you can be out there helping out in little ways. But yeah, it sucks."

Helm is still hoping he's closer to the six-week mark than the eight-week mark for his return.

"My goal is to play right after Christmas but I want to be as far as I can and make sure there's not going to be any setbacks," Helm said.

POSSIBLE RETURN OF SPROUL, ERICSSON: Wings coach Jeff Blashill said final lineup decisions would be made after warmups but defenseman Alexey Marchenko is definitely out.

Marchenko left Tuesday's game early in the third period after a hit by Arizona's Jamie McGinn aggravated the shoulder injury from which he had just returned.

Defenseman Jonathan Ericsson, who missed the last three games with back spasms, took part in the optional skate and said he was ready to go.

Defenseman Ryan Sproul, a healthy scratch the last five games, expects to draw back into the lineup.

Blashill has said that Sproul needs to make sure he is assertive when he's playing.

"I think on the ice that last game there (in Pittsburgh), they came hard in the third and it was a tough period for us," Sproul said. "I got caught out there a couple of times. I think that's what he was talking about there with that. I did feel good for when I was in. I think I've just got to play off what the good things were, the positives were when I was in the lineup before."

Sproul said he can't be worried about making a mistake.

"I think the more you worry about it, the more nervous you play and the more mistakes you actually make," Sproul said. "I think tonight it's just keep it simple and don't worry about making mistakes."

If Sproul and Ericsson are both in, most likely Brian Lashoff would be a healthy scratch.

GOALIES: Jimmy Howard said Wednesday that he would be starting against the Los Angeles Kings.

In 17 career games against the Kings, Howard is 10-7-0 with a 2.42 goals-against average and .924 save percentage.

Detroit native Jeff Zatkoff was the first goaltender off the ice for Los Angeles.

In two career games against his hometown team, Zatkoff is 2-0-0 with a 1.50 goals-against average and .953 save percentage.