Ups and Downs: Week 14

After a little hiatus over Christmas, everyone's favourite completely arbitrary review of the Senators' week that was has returned. This past week featured a pair of gutsy overtime wins, 3-2 over the Blues and 2-1 over the Bruins, alternated with two heartbreaking losses, 3-2 to the Panthers and 7-1 to the Capitals.

Biggest gains: Erik Karlsson

Karlsson is fantastic most of the time, but this week I think we saw another glimpse of just how great. He put up four points in four games, but also had 16 shots, the majority of even-strength shot attempts in all games but the one against the Capitals, nine blocked shots, and five hits. He's been on another level, even for himself recently.

Biggest losses: Alex Chiasson

The game against the Blues was his first healthy scratch since joining the Sens. He then proceeded to get scratched in the next two games. It'll be a race to see if he or Cowen find their way into more games down the stretch.

Goaltenders	Trend	Notes
Craig Anderson		Great game against the Bruins, pretty awful game against the Panthers. I guess that balances things out.
Andrew Hammond		Same story as Andy, except the great game was against the Blues and the awful one was against the Capitals.
Defensemen
Mark Borowiecki		Seems to be getting the Wiercioch treatment, in which his possession numbers get a big boost from playing with PW.
Cody Ceci		Looked pretty good with PW, not as great with Methot
Fredrik Claesson		He actually had a pretty good week, outside of two mistakes that led to goals against the Panthers. Not gonna down-vote his bad week just from that.
Jared Cowen		May never play another game in a Sens uniform.
Erik Karlsson		See Biggest Gains
Marc Methot		Looks like a lot of solid play has a been because of playing with Karlsson
Chris Phillips		Hi Chris!
Chris Wideman		Set up the OT goal against St. Louis, but looks to be the odd man out with Ceci's return
Patrick Wiercioch		Quite possibly Wiercioch's most solid week defensively of the season.
Forwards
Alex Chiasson		See Biggest Losses
Mike Hoffman		Had two goals this week, but the normal possession driver seemed to be struggling this week
Curtis Lazar		Had a pretty good week by the standard of I have no idea what to expect of the guy.
Clarke MacArthur		Good news in that MacA actually skated this week. Without equipment or teammates, but still, that's good news.
Max McCormick		Gets an up arrow for scoring his first NHL goal, and for looking like a decent fit on the Pageau line.
Milan Michalek		Had two points in three games after returning from injury - that's good in my books
Chris Neil		Has continued to not be a liability on the fourth line
Jean-Gabriel Pageau		Had a pretty good week. I'm hoping McCormick-Lazar-Pageau can be a pretty good third line from here on out.
Shane Prince		Greening-Smith-Neil was awful. Prince-Smith-Neil has been great. I think we can learn something from this.
Bobby Ryan		Is it fair to give him an up arrow for having one game with three points and no points the rest of the week? I make the rules, so I say yes. Ottawa dodged a bullet in that he wasn't injured against the Bruins.
Zack Smith		Back on the fourth line he's been great. Still not sure why he's on PP2, but win some, lose some
Mark Stone		Two points, and some pretty dominant hockey from Ottawa's second-line RW (TM Bob Cole)
Kyle Turris		He's so snake-bitten that he's lost his spot as Ottawa's most-trusted offensive centre. Seems like he's had about 10,000 chances though so something's bound to go in eventually
Mika Zibanejad		Coach has put him on PP1 and as the first centre out in OT, which makes up for the poor possession numbers and lone point maybe. Ottawa dodged a bullet in that he wasn't injured against the Blues.

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