VANCOUVER, British Columbia -- Injuries and a tough travel schedule figured to take a toll on the Detroit Red Wings on Saturday night.

But they showed tremendous resolve against the team with the best record in the NHL, edging the red-hot Vancouver Canucks 2-1 in a shootout at Rogers Arena for their sixth consecutive road victory.

Jimmy Howard was tremendous in goal, making 34 saves and, for the second night in a row, stopping all three shootout attempts.

Jiri Hudler fired a slap shot past Roberto Luongo for the only goal in the shootout, as Detroit snapped Vancouver’s eight-game winning streak.

“It was one of those situations we talked about as a team that if we could just hang around and hang around that we’d have a chance at the end," Red Wings coach Mike Babcock said. “That’s what we tried to do, keep it close and keep it tight. We got good goaltending out of Howard, battled hard and ended up with good specialty teams to keep their power play from getting more."

The Red Wings swept a three-game swing through western Canada for just the second time in franchise history. Detroit is 13-2-3 in western Canada since the start of the 2008-09 season.

The Red Wings will look to sweep their second consecutive road trip Monday in Colorado.

Daniel Sedin scored a power-play goal for Vancouver at 12:09 of the second period, but Johan Franzen evened the score 42 seconds into the third period, which energized the Red Wings.

“We just stuck with it,’’ Detroit captain Nicklas Lidstrom said. “We didn’t have any letdowns when they got their power-play goal. We stuck to our game plan and continued to work and Howie made some big saves when they looked like they had wide-open nets to score goals.’’

The Red Wings turned in the kind of strong defensive performance they were seeking in the absence of several key injured players. The latest to be sidelined was defenseman Brad Stuart, who’ll be out 6-8 weeks with a broken jaw.

The Red Wings had allowed three or more goals in six consecutive games and 11 of their last 13.

“We knew it’s going to be hard, we just had to be patient and grind it out, play great defensively and take what they give us,’’ Franzen said.

“We found an extra gear there,’’ Howard said. “This group is resilient. Even though there’s injuries and we’re missing key guys we’re not going to let those be excuses, and we found a way.’’

Lidstrom said the key was not opening up defensively.

“We played well in our own zone and didn’t give them any odd-man rushes,’’ Lidstrom said. “We slowly got our legs again and I thought that third period was one of our best periods.’’

Howard wasn’t supposed to play on back-to-back nights, but Chris Osgood tweaked a groin injury during the morning skate. Osgood will return to Detroit on Sunday and see a specialist in Philadelphia on Monday to determine if he needs surgery.

Meanwhile, Howard carried over the momentum from his strong performance during the latter half of Friday’s 5-4 shootout win in Calgary. He was out of his crease, challenging shooters, and made several big stops.

“I was just patient, out at the top of the crease all night long,’’ Howard said. “If they were going to get a goal I wanted them to work for it.

“It was a long month of December for me, the bounces not going my way. Instead of letting the puck play me I decided enough’s enough and just got out there and be aggressive.’’

The Red Wings, historically, have not fared well in shootouts (25-30). Hudler thought he’d try something different.

“I should have done that in Calgary, (but) the ice wasn’t good in Calgary, so I was just keeping it simple this time,’’ Hudler said. “I don’t think he expected that.’’

He said Osgood gave him some advice on the bench.

"I talked to Ozzie about it,’’ Hudler said. “I got some spots I like to shoot at, but Homer (Tomas Holmstrom) gave me a hard time a little bit on the bench, just told me look at whatever is open.’’

Franzen was open on his goal. Henrik Zetterberg made a nice saucer pass between two defensemen to spring Franzen free and he flipped a shot past Luongo.

“I came in with a lot of speed and Hank found my stick,’’ Franzen said. “It was a nice play.’’

The assist extended Zetterberg’s point streak to 10 games (five goals, nine assists).

Daniel Sedin’s power-play goal snapped a scoreless tie at 12:09 of the second period.

Sedin, from a sharp angle to the right of the Detroit net, fired in the rebound of a shot by his brother, Henrik, that was deflected in front of Howard.

Frustrated Red Wings defenseman Niklas Kronwall slammed his stick to the ice after the goal. He had a chance to clear the puck but tried to make a pass. It resulted in a turnover.

Kronwall would feel more frustration late in overtime, when his apparent game-winning goal was waved off because Todd Bertuzzi made incidental contact with Luongo.

It didn’t matter. The Red Wings accomplished their mission, despite the adversity.

“They’re a good team and they’re on a roll right now and we’re a real good team, too, but they’re deeper than we are right now,’’ Babcock said. “So if they got rolling tonight ... we were going to be in trouble.

“So the way we approached it was a good way, and in the end we got our points.’’