SUNRISE, Fla. - The Detroit Red Wings devoted the majority of their afternoon practice Thursday to special teams.

Big shocker, eh?

The Red Wings are in a tailspin with a 1-4-1 record in their last six games and a 3-5-2 mark in the last 10, something that can be directly attributed to their poor special teams.

They haven't scored a power-play goal in five straight games after going 0-for-5 Tuesday in Tampa, making them 0-for-21 with a man advantage in that stretch. During the last 10 games, they're 1-for-32 (.032).

Is it any wonder they're not winning?

"It's a work in progress," said veteran forward Steve Ott. "We're a mixed bag of players right now in the sense that we've had some really key injuries and young guys stepping into our team, but all together we need to continue to work on things, our five-on-five game, but more importantly I think all these games here in the last while have been lost by our special teams.

"The power play not clicking sometimes and our penalty killing not supporting (and) vice versa. Like you've seen today in practice, we spent a lot of time on special teams. Both making our power play work and try to continue to push forward and figure it out.

"We've got too many great skill players to not have this continue us through the rest of the season and vice versa. We worked on things on the penalty kill, shore that up and get that back to where it was and we're starting to see progress in that as well."

The power play has sunk to the bottom of the NHL at 12.4 percent.

The Red Wings have just three power-play goals in their last 50 chances dating back 16 games, a failure rate of 94 percent.

With a record of 14-15-4, they're in 13th place in the 16-team Eastern Conference - just two points ahead of the last-place Islanders - but are remarkably just five points behind Boston in the race for the third and final automatic postseason berth in the Atlantic Division.

But if the Red Wings don't want to fall out of the race soon, they know they have to start putting together some victories before the skid snowballs even further.

"Absolutely," said veteran forward Frans Nielsen. "We can't just win one, lose two, win one, lose one. We have to find a way to put a streak together pretty soon.

"For sure we're still in it and we got to put a streak together like we did early on but we feel like we're there and still have a chance at it."

One problem, according to Nielsen, is something that has plagued the Red Wings all season - they don't shoot enough when they have the opportunity.

Instead of firing the puck at the net and getting a good bounce or rebound - not to mention a goal - they often seek the perfect pass and end up with nothing.

"We make wrong decisions with the puck," Nielsen said. "When we have opportunities to get it to the net we're kind of passing up those and trying to making a hard play instead of going through guys. Again, I think we have to be more simple with it. That's what it is. And hopefully you get a bounce and it goes in.

"You can build confidence like that. When it's not working, I know it's a boring answer, but you have to simplify."

Coach Jeff Blashill has been preaching all season that the Red Wings need to shoot more and he reiterated that again during practice.

But one of the most disturbing things Blashill in Tuesday's 4-1 loss to Tampa was he thought the Red Wings were actually outnumbered at times when they had a manpower advantage.

That was something else he addressed in practice.

"There's no way on the power play, if you're battling for the puck, they should have more guys than you or even equal," Blashill said. "So we got to do a better job of winning those battles. I thought we turned some pucks over needlessly.

"I also thought that, similar to what we've gone through 5-on-5, we passed the puck to deliver the puck to the net. It's hard to get inside the dots against the killers. You got to just deliver it to the net. Especially when it's not going great.

"We tried to make some passes that actually were kind of there but when things aren't going good, put it on the goalie, put it on the goalie, put it on the goalie."

Blashill won't reveal his lineup for Friday's game against the Florida Panthers until game time but he said there would be some changes on special teams.

One thing to look for?

Expect speedy forward Andreas Athanasiou to get more time on the power play.

"I'll use Double A," Blashill said. "I'm certain of it but I want to get him some penalty kill time as well and that's one thing that's tough in practice. You don't get both and I want him to have some penalty kill time. So he'll get some opportunity on the power play just like he did the other night."

The Red Wings' penalty kill hasn't been nearly as inefficient as the power play, ranking 15th in the NHL at 81.8 percent.

They had an eight-game stretch beginning Nov. 26 where they didn't allow a power-play goal in 18 chances but since then the Red Wings have given up five in the last 13 opportunities (38.4 percent) over the last four games.

After facing the Panthers, the Red Wings will have a three-day Christmas break as mandated under the NHL's collective bargaining agreement.