Friday's Daily Dosage - Gagner, Hall, Eberle, Ward...

Holy cow is the best way I can describe it. Historical night as Sam Gagner scored the touchdown with a 2-point conversion. His 8-point night (4g, 4a) included a plus-6 and 6 shots. This was the first time anyone had 8 points in a game since Mario Lemieux did it in 1988. Just one of those points (PPA) was on the special teams, however. To say this came out of nowhere would be pretty accurate. He had gone 11 games without a goal and had just two points in his last nine games. With Ryan Nugent-Hopkins scheduled to return from injury on Saturday night, it will be interesting to see if they wait on reuniting him with Hall and Eberle. I own Gagner in a keeper league and the thought of keeping him hasn't even crossed my mind. Should I be thinking about it now?

Riding the coattails of Gagner, so to speak, were Taylor Hall and Jordan Eberle, posting identical lines of 1+3=4 and a plus-4. Hall is riding a 3-game point streak with 3+4=7. Eberle's four points give him 50 on the season.

Ryan Whitney scored his first goal of the season and added an assist. The goal came on the powerplay. This is a situation that I'll be keeping my eye on as Whitney is a free agent in almost every league I'm in. If he's finally healed, big time minutes and PP time will be in his future and he may be able to finish the season in a flurry.

I have to say this just to zing a few friends of mine: how upset are you if you're a Ales Hemsky owner? You wake up and see the Oilers scored 8 goals. Surely Hemsky had a couple of points. But no, he had no points and was a minus-2. Something tells me he may be getting dropped in a league or two.

Lost in the hoopla of the 8-point game was Patrick Sharp scoring two goals including one sharthanded. He fired 7 shots on net, so it looks like he's 100% healthy.

Cam Ward with easily his best performance of the season puts up a shutout against the Bruins of all teams. He stopped all 47 pucks the reigning Stanley Cup Champs fired at him. He's been very good of late posting sick stats of .951 sv% and 1.62 gaa in his last 12 games. These are the type of stats we had in mind back in October. Had it not been for Gagner, Ward would have the line of the night.

David Clarkson with his second consecutive multi-point effort as he had 2+1=3 , 2 PIM, 1 PPG, 3 SOG, and 8 hits. This guy is really becoming a fantasy asset as he's now sporting 19 goals and 88 PIM on the season.

Three assists for Ilya Kovalchuk last night in 27:38 of ice time and it might be safe to let him back into elite status. He's got 44 points in 45 games on the season. I feel like with that type of ice time even I could put up a point per game. Maybe not, though, my slapshot needs some work.

Two goals for Zach Parise including the GWG. His owners are saying "Thanks Zach, but can you please get some powerplay points?!". The Devils PP is just dreadful.

Niklas Backstrom with a 37 save shutout of the Avalanche last night. I didn't see the game but this impressive stat line is made a little less impressive based on the fact that the Avs just don't have a lot of firepower these days. Especially sans Matt Duchene.

Ilya Bryzgalov is looking a bit better lately as he got the win against the Predators stopping 26 of 27 shots. He's allowed just one goal in 4 of the last 5 games. Unfortunately, he allowed 5 in the other one. Still, the Flyers are going to be leaning on him because they need him playing at a top level if they're going to make a run in the playoffs.

Wayne Simmonds had two goals on 10 shots last night. He's lucky Pekka Rinne wasn't in the net.

Ondrej Pavelec stopped 30 shots en route to beating the Lightning 2-1 in OT. He's put together a good run of late as he's got a .932 save% and 1.83 gaa over his last 8 games.

It was a 40 save night for Roberto Luongo but he took the SOL as he allowed the only two Red Wings shooters he saw to score. I can't imagine what it feels like to see Pavel Datsyuk approaching you with the puck during the shootout. It must be some mix of confusion and fear.

Brent Burns with his first multi-point effort in 16 games and just the third of the season as he had 3 apples. He also had 4 PIM, 3 hits, and plus-1 so nice all around effort for him. At just 7+13=20 on the season, he's really disappointed a lot of fantasy teams.

Five game point streak for Logan Couture as he had 2 assists last night. He has 3+5=8, 4 PPP, and plus-3 for the streak. He's on pace for 67 points which would be a nice step forward after his 56 points last season. The one somewhat disappointing thing is that he only has 10 PIM and he had 41 PIM last year. Mix it up a bit, Logan!