LEAFS LOSE, AND IT'S PREMATURE TO HARP ABOUT THE HAVLAT DEAL

Now take a look at God's fabulous parquet floor. Eyes on the floor... always, on the floor.

• Blackhawks 2 Habs 1: Hey, look, Martin Havlat and Bryan Smolinski scored Chicago's goals, which all the armchair GMs in Ottawa-Gatineau surely didn't need pointed out.
  
  Back in July, the 3-team deal that sent Havalt and Smolinski to the NHL's answer to Siberia seemed like foreshadowing of a Senators collapse. Then again, Ottawa did without both players for much of '05-06, and still led the NHL in goals. The last thing the Senators needed was more offence. So yes, I'm hedging a bit.
  
  Havlat has scored or set up more goals (13) for Chicago than the entire Senators team has scored (10), but it's the third week of the season. It's way too early to draw conclusions. Ask yourself: Can the Sens' slow start be explained away by saying they would be fine if they still had Havlat? Not really. All this anxiety now will look silly if (emphasis on if) the Senators right their ship and the Blackhawks finish their usual 12th in the Western Conference with Havlat registering 75 points.
  
  By the way: Attendance was just 11,095 at the United Center last night. Said it before and will say it again: It never would have come to this if Bill Wirtz was still alive.
• Avs 4 Leafs 1: This is what happens when Pavel Kubina is out and Leafs don't play with any jam (they drew just four power plays all night). Forget this game ever happened and look ahead to how ready Paul Maurice has the Leafs for back-to-back games against Columbus and and the New York Rangers.
  
  By the way, isn't it redundant to write "before a quiet crowd of 19,463 at Air Canada Centre"? It's almost always quiet at the ACC. Which is good. It makes for clearer cell phone reception for all the wheeler-dealers in the good seats, which in turn helps drive economic growth. It's win-win, except for the actual Leafs games, but that's neither here nor there.
• Wild 2 Kings 1 (OT): These are heady times in the Twin Cities. The Wild are (is?) 6-0 after Marion Gaborik's OT winner last night, plus the Vikings managed to get through the bye week without publicly shaming the great state of Minnesota. By the way, Kings attendance isn't so hot either: This was the third time in five games that they drew less than 15,000 fans. It's not like they have competition: None of L.A.'s other major pro teams are playing right now, unless you count the USC Trojans.

Back with more later. Send your thoughts to neatesager@yahoo.ca.