Musings from sick bay..........

A couple of days of R & R for our Habs and for yours truly who is battling a nasty cold. We'll have a better idea of where we are in the standings by Thursday as the rest of the Eastern Conference plays catch up.

Okay, I'll come out with it. I feel more confident when Halak is in nets. There, I said it. This is in no way a sleight to Carey Price, but Halak is a couple of years older and manages to get the job done on a more consistent basis. We're in such a tight race for a playoff spot; you have to go with the hot hand. How this will all play out by the trade deadline will be interesting, but that's why Bob is the GM and I'm sitting here blogging.

To my shock and horror, I actually agreed with something that Mike Milbury said on HNIC. Ron McLean was making the usual excuses for the Leaf's woes, reiterating how the Habs beating them in overtime in the first game of the season destroyed their confidence. Milbury says "for thirty five games?" "You need a dose of reality."

Does anyone think that Brian Burke will make a play for Kovalchuk? He was being interviewed on HNIC and he states if he could make a trade tomorrow that would get the Leafs into the playoffs he would do it in a heartbeat. In reality, the only teams that should be interested in Kovalchuk as a rental would be a team that feels they have a shot at the cup, and that sure ain't the Leafs or the Habs. But with Burke you never know, what started out as a rebuild has now turned into a retooling of sorts.

Bob Gainey's comments were interesting last week. He considers games against more elite teams as tests. Does that mean he's making notes of our shortcomings to try and improve our team at the trade deadline? I wonder if a trade is in the works, I still think we need a power forward to improve our five on five, while others feel we need to solidify our defense. I'd welcome your thoughts in the comments.

I'll leave you with a couple of observations about the last of his species, to whom the almighty dollar didn't matter, only the love of his team, the now extinct loyal ex-Hab and my beloved captain, Saku Koivu.

"If only they could bottle the effort Koivu displayed and use that every time in their desperate bid to stay in the playoff picture", said Ducks coach Randy Carlyle. Koivu scored a second-effort shorthanded goal in the first period. "That's the inspiration you hope that goes through your hockey club. You could feel it on the bench from our players," added Corey Perry.