That was a pretty convincing win tonight by Detroit. It looked a lot like every other game in the past few season have against Phoenix. The Coyotes took it to Detroit on the very first shift, but other than that it was a rather comfortable win. Just another day against Phoenix, right?

Except the circumstances were anything but ordinary. The Coyotes were the hottest team in the NHL in December, and they were at their best in their own barn. They hadn't lost in it in ten contests, before San Jose beat them there on Thursday. The team was overacheiving as a whole, and Ilya Bryzgalov has been lights out good -- in my mind, the second best goalie to Ryan Miller this season. He was easily the top goalie of last month, as FSN-D brought up a couple of times. Detroit has been inconsistent lately, shut out three times in their past ten, battling through all kinds of injuries. Seems like a recipe for Bryzgalov to really give them some trouble.

Yet, the game was never in doubt. None of that mattered, it was Phoenix vs. Detroit as usual. It didn't feel strange, because Phoenix never dominates Detroit. But this was a really impressive win that might get swept under the rug. The Coyotes can play -- I've loved watching them this season.

First, some credit to the unsung heroes: Detroit's defensemen. For as much trouble as I give Mebdeech, and as much as I'm really glad Doug Janik is only temporary, the defense is really overachieving right now. Jimmy Howard is getting a lot of credit -- and deservedly so. But when you think about what the media says about this team's blueline, you really just have to give them credit. Nicklas Lidstrom is having an off year. Brian Rafalski is weak defensively. Brad Stuart is a bust for a #3 pick. Brett Lebda and Derek Meech are the favorite targets of Detroit fans to create trade proposals around, in order to get them out of the lineup. Hey, I'm not innocent there -- check out my case for Mathieu Schneider a couple days ago.

Yet somehow, this team has really come through with keeping the puck out of the net. They had trouble all last season with the PK and clearing the puck out of the zone, but that hasn't been an issue this season -- especially in the past month, a month which hasn't featured Niklas Kronwall or much of Jonathan Ericsson. In reality, Lidstrom's been perfect. Rafalski is really solid in his own right. He struggles against big forwards, and lost a lot of fans in Detroit after a couple games where he let a forward like Rick Nash roll all over him, but really, he hasn't had a game even close to bad all season. Stuart's just been excellent -- most underrated defenseman in the league right now. Janik isn't a liability. And, again, Mebdeech is really not as useless as I make them out to be -- they make mistakes, but they're both pretty suitable for depth defensemen.

Credit goes to the forwards as well. Some of that comes when you have to reign it in offensively, because you don't have the talent to get into a score-a-thon anymore, and you need to win that 1-0 game. I'm as big of a Howard fan (probably bigger) as everyone else, and he was sensational tonight, but I don't think the defense is getting enough credit for the really exceptional work they've put in over the past fifteen games or so.

That said, some interesting discussion was generated today regarding a question that basically boiled down to "is Howard too good to not be the starter for the playoffs?" This assumes a lot, mainly that Howard will keep up this play for the next four months to even get to the playoffs. I'm not sure -- I'll say the same thing I told Hollis when a lot of people were ready to give up on Howard: rookie goalies are delicate, and there are a lot of ups and downs. I still don't think Chris Osgood has played his way out of the starting role, and he'd have to be atrocious for Detroit to actually start Howard in the playoffs. I do think what is happening is Howard is slowly shortening the leash on Osgood for how quickly Babcock will flip starters, should we see a meltdown in the playoffs, or leading up to them.

But as of right now: too early. If Howard can keep up his past month, we won't be talking starter; we'll be talking Vezina. Ridiculous, right? But his save percentage last month was .937, which is outer-worldly. I just don't think he's going to be able to keep that up, because no goalie in the NHL can keep that up. I just think he's red hot right now, and it's a little early to be saying that he should start in the playoffs regardless of how Osgood finishes this year. For now, though, ride him. Nobody can solve him.

As good as the blueline was, the story tonight was the top line. I've never been someone who likes to admit being wrong, but I will gladly right now take a second to revisit the podcast last week where I put Pavel Datsyuk in the doghouse. He's totally made me eat my words with his past two performances. I don't think I was wrong to do it, though. I think a lot of people can see that Datsyuk has really brought his A-game, and maybe we weren't seeing his 100% in the few games leading up to where I called him out. But for the second straight night, he was all over the ice. He's shooting again, and he looks infinitely more confident in the offensive zone. He's living up to the expectations he created for himself when he was nominated for the Hart Trophy. Easily the best player on the ice, and I don't think you can say that about most of his performances in December.

Tomas Holmstrom was very active all night after a bit of a slump, but man did my heart sink when FSN finally showed the replay of his second goal. I was really hoping that was Lidstrom's, and we'd finally get to stop talking about his streak. You just know it's a matter of time. And you just know that when it happens, the goals will come in bunches. Nick's got six assists in his last three games. Not exactly the slump we're being told he's in.

Although, I do have to place the blame on him for that near own goal miss. Petrella was (very) quick to point out that it was Todd Bertuzzi on the pass -- but that's clearly Lidstrom's fault. That was a crisp cross-ice offensive zone pass that Bertuzzi's had picked off a thousand times this season. It was flat and on the ice, headed for between Nick's feet (pretty close to where he'd take a one-timer from). Lidstrom is one of the best in the league with his feet (and he even had a really good keep in with his skates in that same period) and I have no idea why he didn't adjust to it. Thought it was a near perfect pass, just a bit of a miscue by Lidstrom not to use his foot to handle it.

Other than that, a pretty solid night all around. I thought Mattias Ritola was exceptionally good. I'm surprised he's so patient with the puck -- he hasn't been scoring in Grand Rapids, usually guys like that tend to want to get rid of it. Conversely, Ville Leino went right back to being invisible. I'm not so sure which one I want going back to Grand Rapids after this road trip.

Anaheim on Tuesday. A struggling team, but always a real treat to play. Can't wait to see how tough Corey Perry thinks he is now that he's a Canadian Olympian. Looking forward to that one, for sure.