It was nice to close out the month of November with a tidy win by the Wings.

Goals were as follows:
Detroit: Drew Miller (Lebda, Draper); Darren Helm (Draper, Bertuzzi); Dan Cleary (Zetterberg, Holmstrom); Todd Bertuzzi (Datsyuk)
Dallas: Brenden Morrow (Robidas, Daley)

Pluses
+ Young Howard looks confident, and he looks like an NHL-level goaltender.  Maybe he’s finally realized that he is capable of playing in this league, or maybe he’s getting Zen tips from Ozzie, who knows.  And I don’t care as long as he keeps playing like this.  He’ll get his third straight start on Thursday against Edmonton, and I’ll assume he’ll get one of the starts this weekend, as it’s a back-to-back versus New Jersey, then New York Rangers.  Like a few others, I’m cautiously optimistic about Howard.  I like that he’s getting chances and getting rewarded for good play, because that can do nothing but boost his confidence even further.
+ Young Miller also has been a pleasant surprise.  I certainly knew nothing about him when we picked him up from the waiver wire, and I’m not convinced that anyone actually thought he would do much other than fill an empty slot in the 4th line.  But his goal was a relief, and the Wings seemed to settle down a little bit after it.  I remember thinking shortly before he scored that it’d be nice to see some sustained pressure on the offensive.  I know it was a questionable icing call, but I’ll take it.  He and Helm had a few strong shifts that were spent crashing and banging around the boards, and it was also nice to see Helm finally get one.
+ Bertuzzi scored, and ended the night with a goal, and assist, and +2.
+ Having Mary Turco in net for Dallas.  Maybe it was coincidence that the Red Wings played a much more Wing-like game.  Maybe they would have scored 4, or at least played that well of a game against a team other than the Stars.  Regardless, I say “Thank you,” Marc Crawford, for playing Marty Turco at the Joe.  Red Wings Nation rejoices.  Also, I wish I had that graphic that FSD showed, with the 6 goalies who all had win % below .400 against the Wings.  They flashed it twice, briefly, and because I was watching online via GameCenter I couldn’t pause.  All I know was that it made me gleeful to see that Nabokov owns a .333 win % against Detroit.

Minuses
– The power play.  Four chances with the man advantage, zero conversions.  During the power play in the 3rd (Ribeiro in the box for slashing Holmstrom), Ken Daniels mused, “nobody’s heading towards the net.”  Yeah, story of the PP, Ken.  Too much perimeter passing and shots from the outside.  The power play is clipping along at 21.3%, good for 13th in the league right now.  Guess who’s first?  Columbus.  Yes, that’s right, the Columbus Blue Jackets, who had the worst PP overall last year, now have the best at 24.8%.  I mean, I realize we lost some power on the point and all that, but come on.

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