It's not often that I see an opportunity to wow everyone with my artistic ability, but here it is. I just don't want to embarrass other bloggers really -- impeccable grammar, patience and logical reasoning, and extraordinary Paint skills? I'm a triple threat. I just don't feel the need to show it off all the time. If there was an award for modesty, I would win it. Easily.

Short recap due to a headache, possibly a stress headache from watching that game.

Basically I just want to talk about Jimmy Howard. Mainly, Jimmy Howard and Twitter. I normally don't tweet during games because I feel it's distracting and my focus isn't on the games, but I saw quite a few people talking Howard and I didn't like it. Howard was definitely lucky on quite a few occasions tonight, but give the man some credit. He bailed out his team tonight, not the other way around.

What's with that? This is a 9th place club looking to find points any way they can. Who cares how they look doing it? This team has not had too many pretty wins this season, since when can we be picky? I realize that Howard's technique was not on display tonight, but who cares? It's the same thing I argue when I support Chris Osgood against people who don't think he's a great goaltender. Is the point to win, or to look good? People slight Osgood for that junk all the time, that he's the worst goalie to ever win a Cup and all that. Same logic: if the point of playing hockey is to win the Stanley Cup, who's better: Chris Osgood, or some goalie that won four Vezinas but never won a Cup? Easy answer.

I'm not looking for style points, I don't care what Howard saves the puck with as long as it doesn't go in. I don't care if he flops like Hasek, because Hasek was actually a good goalie for quite some time. Do I prefer goalies who make saves look easy? Absolutely. But as long as the puck is not going in the net, Jimmy can do whatever he wants. I think it's pretty ridiculous to think otherwise. Do I think he can keep playing like that and maintain his 98% save percentage? No, I don't -- but until he starts letting goals in I'm not going to say a word.

The other thing I found funny was people saying that Howard was bailed out by his defense. Think about that, his defense. The defensemen help defend the net. Doing their jobs, in other words -- what a novel concept. That's the point. When the puck is loose around the crease, the defensemen better be getting down on their knees to help Howard find it. That's called "paying the price." It doesn't always feel good taking a puck in a vulnerable position, and kneeling in front of the goal is just opening yourself up for all kinds of agony, but to act like the defense did him a favor is ridiculous. Overall, Detroit was great in front of the net tonight. Whether Jimmy saved them or Brad Stuart did or Doug freakin' Janik did it doesn't matter at all. Team defense. Needs to keep playing like that.

Either way, the only reason I said anything to begin with was not every save was lucky. He had maybe three goal mouth scrambles (which is quite a few) but the majority of the saves were routine saves that he's been making all season, with about a dozen absolutely clutch highlight reel saves. The important thing is, he wasn't giving up bad rebounds on easy shots the way he was against Anaheim. I don't blame him for that loss (team effort sucked in front of him), but that's a game where I say he was lucky -- lucky that those rebounds didn't end up making the score more lopsided. If Mickey Redmond were at the game today, I'm pretty sure we'd have heard one of his favorite lines: "You gotta be lucky to be good, and good to be lucky."

Love Babcock's decision to ride Howard. I didn't have an Anaheim recap, but I can assure you I loved it as soon as I heard Howard was starting again. Detroit cannot afford to let Osgood find his game at this point. The decision I think was the best for both goalies. Howard had one bad outing after a month and a half of excellence. He's learning that he's earned himself some security. There's nothing that could be worse for a him than one bad game, then having the starting goalie catch fire and start every game for the next three weeks. Howard comes back, and he's got no rhythm. With the exception of that game, he's been getting better and better each start -- more and more confident.

From Osgood's standpoint, this tells him that while he will get a chance to win his role back -- he's not going to get many. Last year he was just thrown in every other game regardless of how he was playing, Babcock hoping that he'd get a good effort. If Osgood doesn't start making the most of his playing time, like Howard has, Detroit will have a new playoff starter.

The offense is going to have to be much better. I have no idea how this team gives up so many shots to anybody, let alone a Los Angeles team who have struggled somewhat in their past ten -- though their offense is pretty potent this year. As I said, the defense really helped out Howard, andI didn't feel they really turned too many pucks over, as is usually the case when Detroit lets up 30+ shots. Detroit's offense just wasn't containing the puck. They weren't holding it in Los Angeles' end. Henrik Zetterberg and Dan Cleary are excused for one game, but everyone else needs to be better.

Let's keep it going. Fight that good Twitter war. President of Space.