DETROIT -- Jimmy Howard certainly isnt playing like a backup goalie.Howard stopped 36 shots and the Detroit Red Wings beat the skidding Vancouver Canucks 3-1 on Thursday night.Howard saves us again. Goaltending, Red Wings captain Henrik Zetterberg said. I thought we had a good start, got the goal early but then we started to play a little too cute, let them back in the game. A little bit too stubborn with turnovers again. You cant do that against this team.After opening the season as the No. 2 man in net behind Petr Mrazek, Howard made his third consecutive start. He improved his goals-against average to 1.22 and his save percentage to .961.Howard is 4-2-0 in seven games, six starts.When I get in there, I just want to give the team a chance to win, he said.Dylan Larkin, Brendan Smith and Steve Ott scored for Detroit. Zetterberg, matched against Canucks captain and fellow Swede Henrik Sedin most of the game, had two assists.We came out good. I thought through large stretches of the game we werent good enough, Red Wings coach Jeff Blashill said. I think were going to have to be better. Now with that said, they do a good job.Daniel Sedin scored for Vancouver, which is 1-9-1 in its last 11 games. Ryan Miller made 24 saves.Miller made a spectacular stop after he began to leave the crease for an extra attacker. Zetterberg got a hold of the puck in the neutral zone and lobbed a shot at the almost-empty net, but Miller made a glove save while diving to his right.We played pretty well tonight, but it is the same story again, Canucks coach Willie Desjardins said. Were getting good chances and nothing is going in.Daniel Sedin cut it to 2-1 at 3:14 of the third period. He finished off a pretty back-and-forth passing play with twin brother Henrik by beating Howard with a shot from the bottom of the left circle. It was Daniel Sedins fifth goal.The Sedins were not matched against Zetterbergs line for the goal.Were playing our system and were creating chances. We just cant get anything to go in, Daniel Sedin said. We have to figure this out, because we cant keep saying this every night. Were playing well enough to win games, but we need to put the puck in the net.Otts first goal with the Red Wings restored Detroits two-goal lead with 4:46 left. He tipped in defenseman Jonathan Ericssons shot from the left point.Detroit led 2-0 after the first.Larkin opened the scoring 32 seconds into the game when he put in the rebound of Zetterbergs shot. It was Larkins team-leading fifth goal.Smith made it 2-0 with 1:47 left in the opening period. His slap shot from the point in the middle of the ice trickled through Miller for his second goal.Game notes Red Wings forward Andreas Athanasiou left after the first period with a lower-body injury. Athanasiou took a hit from Canucks defenseman Nikita Tryamkin. Blashill did not have an update after the game. ... Vancouver sent forward Jake Virtanen to its American Hockey League affiliate, the Utica Comets, on Wednesday. Virtanen has one assist in 10 games. ... Detroits healthy scratches were D Xavier Ouellet, D Ryan Sproul and LW Drew Miller, the brother of Vancouver G Ryan Miller. ... Canucks scratches were D Alex Biega and D Philip Larsen.UP NEXTCanucks: Host the Dallas Stars on Sunday.Red Wings: At the Montreal Canadiens on Saturday. Walker Zimmerman Jersey . Clarkson had been dealing with an elbow injury in early January and will be out of action for at least one week. He has three goals and five assists through 36 games with the Leafs this season. Daniel Lovitz USA Jersey . Terms of the deal were not immediately available. The 26-year-old finished last season with Clevelands Triple-A affiliate in Columbus after signing with the Indians in August. http://www.soccerusateamonline.com/Tim-Ream-America-Jersey/ . By having more great seasons. Manning was the only unanimous choice for the 2013 Associated Press NFL All-Pro team Friday. Antonee Robinson USA Jersey . Nigeria beat surprise package Ethiopia 2-0 in the second leg of their playoff for a comfortable 4-1 aggregate victory. Victor Moses converted a 20th-minute penalty after an Ethiopian handball, and Victor Obinna made certain of Nigerias place in Brazil with his powerful free kick in the 82nd at UJ Esuene Stadium. DeAndre Yedlin Jersey . It might not have mattered. While the Dodgers are preparing for the playoffs, the Padres showed their future has promise behind two rookies. Scuderia Ferrari put an end to a chunk of the driver market speculation in Silverstone on Friday morning when the prancing horse confirmed that Kimi Raikkonen would be staying on at Maranello for the 2017 F1 season.Given that Ferrari traditionally leave their driver announcements until their home race of Monza, in September, the British GP news was received with surprise and curiosity. During the post-session team personnel press conference on Friday afternoon, Ferrari team principal Maurizio Arrivabene explained the psychology behind confirming Kimi two months earlier than anyone anticipated.Our main interest, our issue, was not related to the driver, Arrivabene said. We were very proud and very happy about the work of Kimi since the beginning of the season. He was asked to show his commitment, his results so he deserved the confirmation for next year. Then I was talking about the fact that we needed a kind of good atmosphere in the team and the drivers could help to keep this atmosphere.Due to the fact that the team is still quite new and we need to keep the same commitment for everybody without inserting into the team elements that they can disturb or something new that could break this balance. Having said so, I also said that we confirm Kimi not very soon, because we are in July.Normally the tradition of Ferrari was to do a press release in Monza. We are a new team, we have changed the tradition and we are confirming now because I think we would like to be, as I said, focused and concentrated on car development and not about confirmation or non-confirmation of the drivers. So its a message of stability.The message of stability was designed not only to reassure tifosi and Ferrari management alike, but also to provide Raikkonen with the sort of stability that would allow the Finn to focus on his performance behind the wheel, and not his performance in press conferences and media sessions, which have echoed with variations on contract extensiion questions since before the first 2016 car was unveiled in Barcelona in February.ddddddddddddRelating to the pressure, you know better than me that in the last three or four races every time that Kimi was sitting in a press conference somebody would ask what about his contract, what about your contract?, Arrivabene explained. I asked many many times for a bit of respect for a driver that was a world champion with Ferrari.I know that his nickname is Iceman but hes a human being. Sometimes in Formula One we need to be conscious that we are talking, not with cars because actually the computer talks with the car but the cars are driven by human beings so even Iceman is a human being with his emotions and I think he could feel the pressure. Thats it.One point of interest to arise from Arrivabenes comments was that Ferrari not only sees itself as a quite new team following the chaotic period of management changes seen in 2014, but that this new Ferrari is one concerned with protecting its workforce, reducing pressure where possible to improve performance. This represents a dramatic turnaround from the days during which errors could not be tolerated, with numerous staffers hired and fired for making simple (yet costly, in championship terms) mistakes.One lesson learned from Ferraris first post-Schumacher decade has been that a culture of fear of failure quickly becomes a culture of quagmire, with staffers so afraid of messing up that they cease to try anything different, anything left-field, anything on that border between madness and genius that is often the source of the greatest gains.Kimi Raikkonen is currently the most high-profile beneficiary of the new corporate attitude in Maranello, but the trickle-down effect is already being felt elsewhere in the race team. Sooner or later, it will make itself shown on track. ' ' '