Trending: Wings' winning streak reaches three

DETROIT-- Slowly but surely, the Red Wings are building their game and building their confidence.
Largely thanks to their special teams, the Wings defeated the New Jersey Devils, 4-3, at Little Caesars Arena Thursday night, their third straight win.

Martin Frk (power play), Michael Rasmussen (power play), Justin Abdelkader (shorthanded) and Trevor Daley (shorthanded, empty net) scored for the Wings. Blake Coleman, Sami Vatanen (power play) and Marcus Johansson (power play) scored for the Devils.
Red Wings goaltender Jimmy Howard had 25 saves. Devils goaltender Cory Schneider, making his first start of the season, had 27 saves.
Detroit improved to 4-7-2 this season, 2-3-1 at home, while New Jersey fell to 5-4-1 overall, 0-3-0 on the road.
Next up for the Wings, they host the Edmonton Oilers on Saturday night. The Devils continue their seven-game road trip with a stop in New York to face the Islanders Saturday.
1. Jimmy Howard/Luke Glendening: When the Wings were struggling, Howard was doing his part, giving his team a chance to win every night. Howard faced an offensively talented team in New Jersey and delivered a similar performance, earning the first star of the game. Among Howard's top saves were on Travis Zajac late in the first period and then during the third period penalty kills. Glendening was instrumental on the penalty kill, particularly getting the puck to the net in the third when Abdelkader poked the puck home for the go-ahead shorthanded goal at 12:50 of the third. Glendening also gave the team a spark when he fought Devils defenseman Mirco Mueller at 19:14 of the second period, his second career regular-season battle. Glendening finished with 24 shifts for 16:45, 3:24 of that shorthanded, two shots, a team-high seven hits, was 12-of-22 on face-offs and was plus-2.

Quotable: "I think guys are finding their niche up front, especially (Rasmussen). Frky is stepping in. We all know he's got a cannon and he got it off and was able to get through (Schneider). (Cholowski) continues to make great strides for us. As a whole, our team is starting to really play well in the offensive zone, holding onto the puck, getting it east-west, high-low, and putting shots on net." -- Howard
Quotable II: "I'd say it's for two seasons. I thought three seasons ago he had a down year. I think he really refocused himself going into last season and he's been a physical force on a consistent basis, probably our most physical force on a consistent basis for two years. I think he's worked on his skill-set and gotten better. One thing Luke can do, he's a real athlete and he works extremely hard and so through the course of the summer he's worked at his skill-set and gotten better at those areas. He just gives you so many dimensions. He wins face-offs, he's an excellent, excellent defensive player. I think he ran over (Nico) Hischier tonight. He brings that physicality. He's a net-presence guy. You put him in a lot of different roles and he does a good job. He's a winner. He's the type of player you win with." -- Wings coach Jeff Blashill
Quotable III: "Howie's just giving us a chance to win every night. Whether it looks good or not, Howie's playing g Howie's playing great and giving us a chance every night. That's all you can ask. It was nice to see us get a win for him. We can't keep wasting his performances." -- Niklas Kronwall
Quotable IV: "Glenny's a strong, strong man. He played running back in high school. He's got that low center of gravity. He just drives through people. I don't know if Mueller was ready for that. Glenny holds his own. When he gets in fights, he's done well. So it was good to see. Obviously, I think it did give us some energy. It gave the building some energy. It was good for us." -- Abdelkader
2. Michael Rasmussen: Rasmussen's cool and calm demeanor is close to reaching legendary status, but the 19-year-old has begun to let his emotions seep through his stoic veneer. For the second consecutive game the rookie scored a goal, again a power-play tally at 4:59 of the third to knot the score at 2-2. Gustav Nyquist and Dennis Cholowski picked up the assists. Rasmussen was parked in front of the net and rifled a rebound into the upper right corner to beat Schneider. After he scored, an exuberant Rasmussen was extremely pumped up and who could blame him. The past couple of weeks he has been a healthy scratch twice, endured speculation he was about to be sent back to juniors and was told he needed to become stronger to achieve NHL success. Once he was informed he was staying put in Detroit, he has been a much more engaged and confident player. Against the Devils he had a goal, was even, registered two hits and blocked a shot in 14:07 of ice time.

Quotable: "If you get confident, you tend to go on little runs because of that and as a player, if you score, it builds confidence. It's just the reality of it. You start to go on a little run yourself. So I think it's good for (Rasmussen) that he's been scoring here. I think his play's been way better in the last little bit. I think he's building as a hockey player and I think he's getting rewarded with it with goals. I would also say he had opportunities to score earlier that had they gone in, maybe that would have built his confidence a little bit earlier. But I think it's a good thing." -- Blashill
Quotable II: "I think he's been excellent these last few games. The other day against Columbus he had a great game. I thought tonight again you noticed him out there making plays, being strong with the puck. He came up with a big goal again. So he's been great for us." -- Kronwall
Quotable III: "He's playing better each game. He's obviously a big and strong body. He made some good plays along the wall. Right in front of the net there he made himself big and was strong on his stick for that rebound. So, he's doing a lot of good things and he's grown as a player. It's fun to watch." -- Abdelkader
3. Martin Frk: Frk has struggled to get into the lineup this season but got an opportunity because of injuries to Frans Nielsen, Andreas Athanasiou and Thomas Vanek. Known for his booming shot, Frk took advantage of it when the Wings were on the power play in the first period, scoring from the left circle at 7:54 on a pass from defenseman Mike Green. Dylan Larkin got the second assist on Frk's goal and the first assist on Daley's goal to increase his team-leading total points to 14. It was Frk's first goal of the season and first since March 6 at Boston, a span of 18 games without a goal. Frk finished with 15 shifts for 10:13, had two shots, a takeaway and was minus-1.

Quotable: "I was thinking he'd stop it and I see Larks (celebrating) hard, so I was really happy for that, you know the first one always feels really good. First of all, I didn't try and put it high at all, I think I hit him mid-body and it went in, so yeah, I definitely tried to work on that in practice and it went in today, so I'm glad for that." -- Frk