I had a feeling that Lee Stempniak would get a hat-trick last night... the one goal in his last 20 games tipped me off. Good for you if you had him in your lineup, either you're smarter than I or you haven't changed your lineup in a few months. The Stemp added an assist, plus-5 & five shots to boot.

I makes me cringe to steal this from P-Mac but David Backes was a monster last night with 2+2=4, plus-3, six shots, four hits & 11 FOWs. Backes has been on a seek & destroy mission for a while with 6+13=19, plus-9, 35 PIMs & 53 shots over his last 17 games. This guy just gets it, Doc & Edzo.

John Tavares picked up a couple of ugly ones last night, but they all count, especially when they extend your point streak to 12 games (8+13=21). He has been putting the rubber to the net with eight straight games with 4+ shots (43 in his last eight).

2A & plus-3 for Alex Pietrangelo last night to extend his point streak to nine games (3+10=13, plus-7 & 35 shots).

Cody Hodgson with two goals yesterday and let's hear it for the boy, he has 7+7=14 over his last 16 games. He has very good numbers (2.20 ESP/60) while averaging just 12:41 of TOI/gm.

Alexei Ponikarovsky with a goal in his first game with the Devils. He lined up Clarkson & Josefson on L3 and just had a sniff of the PP.

Ilya Bryzgalov went 30/31 for his second straight strong outing. Is this a sign or is he just luring us in?

A goal yesterday for Matt Read to extend his point streak to five games (2+4=6 & plus-7). His liney, Sean Couturier, had his streak aborted at six games but he did play a season high 18 minutes with Briere & Jagr exiting early.

Sergei Kostitsyn went through a Nov/Dec stretch with just four points in 18 games but since then he's rebounded with 7+4=11 & plus-7 over his last 10 games. The guy is getting the bounces as those seven goals came on just 10 shots, so don't expect the goals to continue. The Kostitsyn-Fisher-Erat line has been a hot one lately.

Peter Mueller with a tip-in last night and he has 3+1=4 & eight shots over his last two games. He's been lining up with Stastny & Galiardi on the Avs "top line". Actually, jokes aside, Paul Stastny has 2+4=6 over his last four games, so he is coming around after a brutal start.

Huge evening for Jay Bouwmeester with 1+2=3, plus-3, two PIMs, two shots & three blocks. He's averaged just 26 points a season in his first two in Calgary and looked to be heading that way after a slow start (1+10=11 in his first 34 games) but now has 2+8=10 in his last 15 games.

Dwayne Roloson stopped 33 of 36 in a win over PHX to pick up his first win since Nov 17th... it's a start, I suppose.

Teddy Purcell kept his little hot patch alive with a goal to give him 5+1=6 over his last six games.

Evgeni Nabokov stopped 32 of 33 to beat Carolina for his fourth straight win... and in true Islander fashion, he'll likely be traded in the next week.

No points but an encouraging sign nonetheless as Roman Josi logged a career high 25 minutes of ice-time last night... lots of upside here and he seems to be earning the trust of the coaching staff.

Marek Zidlicky was your notable healthy scratch from last night. Dude is having an unbelievably bad season, like easily the worst of his career.

Kyle Palmieri & Patrice Cormier are up from the AHL and Mattias Tedenby is going down.