DETROIT -- No longer is anyone asking Tomas Tatar about his goal-scoring slump.

The left winger scored twice to reach the 20-goal plateau for the third time in four seasons as the Detroit Red Wings dumped the Colorado Avalanche, 5-1, on Saturday.

Tatar scored only four times through the first 31 games of the NHL season. Lately, though, he's held the hot hand, with five goals in his last five games and eight over his last 13.

"I've been talking about it all season," Tatar said. "Obviously you don't want to get these up and downs, you would like to be more consistent. I guess that's just how the league is.

"Obviously I'm trying to work on it, to be more consistent. When you're hot or the puck's going the right direction, you're just finding the net."

Detroit carried a 1-0 lead into the third on a second-period power-play goal by Justin Abdelkader, but the Avalanche knotted the count 3:44 into the third. Tyson Barrie's low point shot hit Nathan MacKinnon on the leg and bounded into the net past Red Wings goalie JImmy Howard.

That's when Tatar took over. He finished off a two-on-one break with Luke Glendening at 5:20, and then he made it 3-1 with his 20th goal of the season at 6:56, taking a pass from Gustav Nyquist and hammering a one-timer past Avalanche goalie Calvin Pickard.

Up until that point, Colorado coach Jared Bednar was pleased with the way his team was playing.

"I didn't like our collapse, but for the most part I liked our game," Bednar said. "I thought we were doing some good things defensively for the better part of the game. I thought Howard was good at the other end and he kept us off the scoresheet.

"Then when we finally got that one I thought maybe we'd finally get a little traction, but then we had a couple of breakdowns that took the wind out of our sails."

Dylan Larkin increased the margin to 4-1 at 12:46 when a loose puck found its way to him from a goalmouth scramble and he blasted a high shot into the net during a Detroit power play.

It was the first time all season the Red Wings, who are 29th in the NHL with the man advantage, had scored multiple power-play goals in consecutive games. They scored twice on the power play in Thursday's 5-4 shootout win at Arizona.

"I think now it seems to be working in the past few games," Larkin said. "It's just funneling pucks to the net.

"A few of the goals today were just shots that happened to go in. Maybe they weren't going in during the first half of the year but now it certainly is winning us games."

Nyquist rubbed further salt into Colorado's wound, tallying his 10th of the season at 16:18.

"I feel like this is what we needed through the season," Tatar said. "When we get the lead, we need always that extra one, that calms the whole team, it's a two-goal lead all of a sudden.

"You're playing with more confidence."

The Red Wings won back to back games for the first time since Feb. 18-19. The Avalanche also came into the game seeking to win their second in a row for the second time in six games but instead, have now done so just once in their past 20.

Colorado is an NHL-worst 20-47-3 and has scored a league-worst 135 goals.

This is a really tough way to finish a season," Avalanche forward John Mitchell said. "We're a proud group of guys, and it isn't fun to be in this situation.

"We just have to finish as well as we can and get ready for next season."

NOTES: The Red Wings opted to scratch F Tomas Nosek after recalling him from Grand Rapids of the American Hockey League earlier in the day. Nosek was recalled on an emergency basis. Detroit coach Jeff Blashill said that a couple of unnamed forwards were under the weather and uncertain starters. ... F Mitch Callahan and D Ryan Sproul (knee) were scratched by the Red Wings. D Jonathan Ericsson (wrist) is on Injured Reserve. ... The Avalanche scratched D Cody Goloubef and D Patrick Wiercioch and F Mikhail Grigorenko. ... Colorado is second in the NHL in faceoff percentage at 53.7 percent. Avalanche F Matt Duchene owns an NHL-best 62.7 percent success rate at the faceoff dot.