Friday's Daily Dosage - Carter, Weber, Pavelec

Jeff Carter was awesome last night...in the 1st period. He scored a hat trick (two on the PP) in the span of 3 minutes and 18 seconds and then decided to take the rest of the game off. Not sure how many of you caught this but on the NHL Network the play by play guy proclaimed "it's a natural hat trick!" but it wasn't. Why do people have such trouble understanding what a natural hat trick is? Anyway, Carter's been better of late with 7+1=8 in his last seven games. Who cares that he's also a minus-7 in that span?

Ryan Johansen hadn't had a point in 10 games and hadn't had a goal in 16 games so his 2 PPG last night were nice to see.

Shea Weber had 3 assists and he's been on fire at 2+5=7 for his four game point streak. Check out his numbers on the year: 8+20=28, plus-17, 24 PIM, 101 SOG. I smell a Norris nomination.

Ondrej Pavelec with the shutout vs the Canadiens stopping all 27 shots he saw. He's 2-1-1 with a 0.98 gaa and .967 sv% in his last four. He's also 5-2-1 in his last eight.

Blake Wheeler with 2+1=3 and he's certainly worth a pick-up if he's still available in your pool. He has 4+9=13 and a plus-6 over his last 12 games.

P.K. Subban wasn't in the lineup last night and I thought it was because of an illness he'd been fighting. From the looks of Twitter, however, it sounds like he was a healthy scratch.

Matt Moulson scored a PPG and a PPA last night. The guy doesn't get a whole lot of respect even after consecutive 30-goal seasons, but if you watch the games, he looks like the best player on that line.

Anton Stralman with 2 assists last night in 22:20 of ice time. He's not worth a pickup yet but he's been a point producing defenseman before so he's worth putting on your watch list.

Brandon Dubinsky with 1+1=2 last night and if this guy can start putting up points, he could be very valuable to you. See his 60 PIMs. He needs to be shooting a lot more as he's only got 51 shots in 32 games. Last season he had 202 shots in 77 games. As a Ranger fan, I can tell you that he is shooting but he's been missing the net at an alarming rate.

Marian Gaborik and Phil Kessel both scored their 20th goals to give them a share of the league lead.

It was last in 2007-2008 that Jason Pominville was anywhere near a point per game player. His 1+1=2 last night gives him 37 points in 34 games. Is he bound to come back down to earth? He may have to try to sustain without Thomas Vanek as he left the game last night with an injury and didn't return.

James Reimer needed a game like this as he made 40 saves on 42 shots and got the win against the Sabres. That's two straight games with 40 saves for Optiums-Reim.

Daniel Alfredsson is really making me regret dropping him in a particular league earlier this season. He was 1+2=3 with a PPA and PPG last night. He's been sizzling with 3+6=9 over his last four.

Erik Karlsson with another beauty of a game last night as he put up 1+1=2. He's 2+5=7 during a three game point streak. He's even managed to get his plus/minus to even on the season. You'll remember that last season he was an unsightly minus-30.

Curtis Glencross is a streaky player so you may want to grab him for the mini run that he's on. His two goals last night give him 4+2=6 during a four game point streak.

Jordan Eberle with two goals last night including a pretty, unassisted one. A lot of people have been telling me that Eberle is the best player on that kid line and I'm starting to believe it. He may be one of the hottest players in the NHL over the last month. He's got 11+12=23 with 8 PPP in his last 16 games.

Lubomir Visnovsky with a goal and an assist for the second consecutive game so that's really encouraging for those who invested a lot in him for this season. He's sitting on the bench for my team in the FHS Beta League. Sigh.

Drew Doughty with a nice stat line last night: 0+2=2, 2 PIM, plus-2, 3 SOG. He's so much better than the 12 points in 29 games that he's put up. Hang in there.

Mike Richards returned last night and scored a goal.

Nice game for Nikolai Khabibulin last night as he stopped 30 of 31 Wild shots to get the win; his first in two weeks.

Sent down: Brandon Pirri, Dylan Reese, Jeremy Morin