NHL Again; it's playoff time, sorry.

Alright, so this weekend wasn't a great one for the Habs; yes, we won one of the two matches - but we didn't deserve to win. The Habs played like pure shite and if Kovalev wasn't as good and lucky as he is we'd be trailing this series, not leading it.

Part of it is leadership. I've said it before, Kovalev is one of the greatest players in the NHL today; he can outskate, outshoot and outmuscle just about every other player there is and has hands which can best be described as being magical. I've seen him - in the last two seasons inclusively - lose control of the puck to another player a grand total of three times; I watch 70 games a season. That being said, he is a poor leader for the team - a poor captain; he's an emotional, selfish player who focuses his game on his own success, not on the success of the team and so, when the team faces well organized resistance, as it did over the weekend, the offense tends to collapse (luckily, Komisarek and Price keep things together on the defensive side of it).

Which is why the team needs Koivu back.

If you were to define your perfect team captain, you'd come up with Koivu; he's unselfish, setting up plays, passing and assisting more than scoring (look up his career stats); he is inspiring to his teammates because of his toughness, grit and determination in the face of adversity; he reads the ice like no one else and is in constant communication with his coach, the referees and his teammates (watch him play, some time).

So if there's any player out there who could pull the Habs back together and turn them into the game-winning machine they've been all season, its Saku Koivu. We need him back from his injury. We need him back before the next series, that's for fucking sure.