The Noon Number: 10

10 - the number of points Erik Karlsson has to put up over the rest of the season to beat his Norris-winning season's point total.

Yet, despite that, he's barely in the conversation for the award. Part of that is the performance of other defenders - expected front runner Duncan Keith is 12 points behind Karlsson, where he finished a whopping 25 points up on second place Dustin Byfuglien in 2012. Another part of that is the extra 33 more goals (or so) Ottawa is on pace to allow this season compared to 2011-12. And as much as we might not want to admit it, his +- is practically flipped from his winning season (+16 to -17) and that matters to some of the voters.

But then, consider this: he wasn't 100% at the start of the season. He still doesn't feel the same according to a recent interview. Yet he's so very close to matching his award-winning career high. He might not be in the conversation this season, but going forward he's definitely going to be in the conversation more often than not.

Magic Numbers

Good news! Ottawa can officially not finish last in the league!

Amazingly the Senators chances of catching wild card opponents have actually improved over the course of the week, though marginally. Catching Detroit, currently in the last wild card spot, would take 1% fewer of the remaining games going the right way than Toronto (then in the last spot) did at the start of the week.

Carolina, New Jersey and Toronto also lost ground, while Washington held steady and Columbus gained some ground - though they've got less ground than Detroit did in the first wild card spot to start the week.