Karlsson’s Impressive Season Powering Sens at LinesMaker

Karlsson’s Impressive Season Powering Sens

Erik Karls­son had a week Bobby Orr would have been proud of.

The 21-year-old scored four goals and added six assists for 10 points in three games while going plus-5 and pow­er­ing the Ottawa Sen­a­tors to two wins in three games. He’s had six goals and 15 points dur­ing a six-game points streak that has helped the Sen­a­tors set­tle solidly into sev­enth place in the East­ern Con­fer­ence play­off race.

Karlsson’s surge has also turned the race for most points by a defense­man into a run­away. He shares the top spot in goals (14) with Nashville’s Shea Weber, and his 63 points are 21 more than runner-up Brian Camp­bell of Florida. With 63 points, he’s tied for sev­enth in the over­all points race; no other defense­man is in the top 75. Karls­son has also improved his play in his own zone — he’s plus-15 this sea­son after being minus-30 a year ago.

Five up — Five other play­ers who had a good week:

Evgeni Malkin — Don’t get Geno mad — just ask the Tampa Bay Light­ning what hap­pens when you do. Malkin scored a hat trick for Pitts­burgh in Saturday’s 8–1 win — scor­ing all three goals after an inci­dent with Light­ning goal­tender Dwayne Rolo­son. With six points in his last two games, Malkin is back on top of the scor­ing race.

Jason Spezza — Like Karls­son, his team­mate, Spezza has been pil­ing up points. His three assists on Sat­ur­day extended his points streak to eight games, dur­ing which he’s piled up seven goals and 19 points. For the sea­son, he’s fourth in the NHL with 69 points.

Steven Stamkos — Pitts­burgh kept him off the score­sheet on Sat­ur­day, but Tampa Bay’s top gun is run­ning away with the goal-scoring title — with 43, he’s seven ahead of Malkin and 12 ahead of third-place Phil Kessel. He had three goals and six points in the Lightning’s pre­vi­ous two games and has scored six times in Tampa Bay’s last five contests.

Kari Lehto­nen — Lehto­nen stepped up when Dal­las needed him, allow­ing one goal in two games to help the Stars move into eighth place in the West. He went 2–0-0 and posted only the sec­ond regular-season shutout ever by the Stars’ fran­chise in Montreal.

Dustin Brown — With trade rumors swirling around him, Brown stepped up for the Los Ange­les Kings on Sat­ur­day night, scor­ing three times and adding an assist in a 4–0 vic­tory. He scored or assisted on six of the Kings’ nine goals last week.

Five down – Five play­ers who are struggling:

Danny Briere — The speedy Philadel­phia for­ward has been one of the NHL’s best snipers for more than a decade, but he’s hav­ing trou­ble find­ing the net. Saturday’s game at Cal­gary was the 16th in a row in which he has failed to score.

Carey Price — He’s play­ing his heart out for a Mon­treal team that enters Sunday’s action last in the East, but it was a tough week for Price — he lost all three starts, allow­ing three goals in each — and is 1–4-1 with 19 goals allowed in his last six starts.

Tomas Vok­oun — It was a tough week for the 35-year-old — not only did he lose both of his starts for the Wash­ing­ton Cap­i­tals, but he was pulled in both games and allowed six goals on only 18 shots.

Antti Niemi — Like Vok­oun, San Jose’s start­ing goal­tender got the hook twice — he was lifted in the first period after allow­ing three goals on 11 shots at Colum­bus on Tues­day, and again after less than 16 min­utes on Sat­ur­day, when he gave up three on seven shots.

Eric Chris­tensen — Min­nesota grabbed Chris­tensen on waivers from the Rangers, hop­ing he could give them an offen­sive boost. Instead, he’s failed to come up with a point in 10 games with his new team and is minus-8 in that span.

Injuries, news and notes:

Out - Detroit lost a pair of reg­u­lars last week. Top-line cen­ter Pavel Dat­syuk had knee surgery and will miss another week or two. On Sat­ur­day, defense­man Jonathan Eric­s­son broke his left wrist and will miss at least four weeks. … Chicago cap­tain Jonathan Toews missed last week with an upper-body injury. The Hawks hope he’ll be ready to go on Wednes­day. … Ottawa is with­out start­ing goal­tender Craig Ander­son, who cut his hand dur­ing an acci­dent at home after Wednesday’s win. The Sen­a­tors hope he could be ready some­time this week. … Col­orado for­ward Milan Hej­duk (groin) missed Saturday’s game. … Col­orado placed defense­man Ryan O’Byrne on IR with a knee injury sus­tained in Wednesday’s game. … Blues defense­man Kris Rus­sell returned home after Thursday’s game in Nashville with concussion-like symp­toms. St. Louis also lost for­ward Jamie Lan­gen­brun­ner for at least three more weeks with a bro­ken foot. … Islanders cen­ter Josh Bai­ley missed Friday’s game with back spasms. … Brent John­son, Pittsburgh’s backup goal­tender, sat out Sat­ur­day and won’t dress Sun­day due to back prob­lems. … Tampa Bay cap­tain Vin­cent Lecav­a­lier is expected to miss at least 2–3 more weeks with a non-displaced frac­ture in his right hand. Defense­man Vic­tor Hed­man left Saturday’s game with an upper-body injury and will be eval­u­ated Sun­day. For­ward Ryan Shan­non is day-to-day with an upper-body prob­lem. … Phoenix for­ward Gilbert Brule sat out the Coy­otes’ two-game trip to Alberta with a head injury sus­tained in Los Ange­les on Tuesday.

Return­ing — Nashville for­ward Patrik Horn­qvist was back in the lineup Sat­ur­day night after miss­ing five games with an upper-body injury. … Ryan Nugent-Hopkins had a goal for Edmon­ton in his return on Sat­ur­day. He had missed 20 of 22 games with shoul­der injuries. … Dev­ils for­ward Ryan Carter returned on Fri­day after miss­ing three weeks with a bro­ken fin­ger. … Colum­bus expects to use goal­tender Cur­tis San­ford on Sun­day; he hasn’t started since Feb. 9 due to a bad back. … Dal­las defense­man Shel­don Souray (foot) returned Thurs­day. … Van­cou­ver got for­ward Byron Bitz back on Fri­day after he missed three games with a hip injury. … Islanders goal­tender Evgeni Nabokov returned Fri­day after miss­ing four games with the flu. Defense­man Travis Hamonic was also back after miss­ing three weeks with a bro­ken nose and facial injuries. … Florida got defense­man Ed Jovanovski back on Thurs­day after his missed 14 games with a bro­ken hand. Another defense­man, Jason Gar­ri­son, returned Sat­ur­day after miss­ing five games with an ankle injury.

Still out — Car­olina goal­tender Cam Ward missed all three games this week with a lower-body injury suf­fered last Sat­ur­day. … Van­cou­ver put defense­man Keith Bal­lard on long-term IR; he’s still side­lined with a con­cus­sion and isn’t expected to play again dur­ing the reg­u­lar sea­son. … Cal­gary for­ward David Moss (ankle) is skat­ing and the Flames expect him to return to action in early March. … Chicago defense­man Steve Mon­ta­dor (upper body) sat out both games this week­end. He hasn’t played since Feb. 7. … Mon­treal defense­man Andrei Markov skated at prac­tice last week while wear­ing a non-contact jer­sey; he’s work­ing to come back after knee surgery and hopes to play again this sea­son, but there’s no timetable for his return. … New Jer­sey is still with­out defense­man Hen­rik Tallinder (blood clot in leg) and cen­ter Travis Zajac (Achilles). Nei­ther is close to returning.

The week ahead — Sun­day is the last day of action before the trade dead­line hits at 3 p.m. ET on Monday.

Games to watch:

New Jer­sey at New York Rangers (Feb. 27; NBCSN/TSN2) — The Dev­ils need this one to have any chance of catch­ing the first-place Rangers in the Atlantic Divi­sion race.

Philadel­phia at San Jose (Feb. 28; NBCSN/TSN2) - The Sharks return home after a gru­el­ing nine-game trip to greet the Fly­ers, who are fin­ish­ing a four-game trip and haven’t won at the Shark Tank since Novem­ber 1999.

Toronto at Mon­treal (March 3; NHLN-US/CBC/RDS) — The teams meet for the first time since Mon­treal spoiled Mats Sundin Night in Toronto with a 5–0 win three weeks ear­lier; the Leafs haven’t been the same

Boston at New York Rangers (March 4; NBC/NHLN-Canada) — The Bru­ins pay their first visit of the sea­son to Madi­son Square Gar­den. The Rangers have won both games between the teams this sea­son in Boston, includ­ing a 3–0 vic­tory on Feb. 14.

Chicago at Detroit (March 4; NHLN-US) — The Cen­tral Divi­sion rivals are meet­ing for the fifth time this sea­son; both teams have won twice. They don’t see each other again until April 7, the final day of the reg­u­lar season.

Tough week ahead:

Buf­falo Sabres — After a cushy home sched­ule that helped revive their play­off hope, the Sabres head West for games at Ana­heim and San Jose before end­ing their week with a stop in Vancouver.

New Jer­sey Dev­ils — It’s a grind of a week for the Dev­ils, who played Tampa Bay at home Sun­day and visit the Rangers, Boston, Wash­ing­ton and the Islanders for five games in an eight-day span.

St. Louis Blues - The Blues play the last four games of a six-game trip, includ­ing all three West­ern Canada teams in a four-night span.

Easy week ahead:

Car­olina Hur­ri­canes — The ‘Canes play the last half of a six-game home­s­tand, with Nashville, the Rangers and Tampa Bay com­ing to the RBC Cen­ter — and the Preda­tors and Light­ning will be play­ing the sec­ond half of back-to-backs.

San Jose Sharks — After a nine-game trip that took them all over the United States and Canada, the Sharks are back in the Bay Area for the week, with games against the Fly­ers, Sabres and Blues — three teams in var­i­ous stages of long trips of their own.

Wash­ing­ton Cap­i­tals — The Caps spent most of the last two weeks on the road, but they get a week at home against three East­ern Con­fer­ence rivals, the Islanders, Dev­ils and Flyers

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