Lacavalier coming to Montreal?

Just when you had enough of the Mats Sundin thing something else comes up. In-between snoring through the Edmonton/St. Louis game (and it really was a boring) and the Golden Globes thing, I opened up one eye when the dudes at TSN mentioned the words "Is Lacavalier about to be traded?" and then I promptly opened up both when they continued by saying "there is apparently a lot of talk between Bob Gainey and the dudes in charge in Tampa Bay". Okay so I paraphrased that one slightly. I'm also notoriously late to the party on this type of news... apparently the rumors have been going on for a while. Eh.

Point is, it's mainly all speculation right now, but apparently there is some credence to the rumours that there are some in the Tampa Bay management office that want to trade Lacavalier. TSN peeps went so far as to say that there has been some talk between Montreal and Tampa Bay. Of course the TSN dudes had to go and bring up the usual names in Habstown when the word "trade" comes up. Higgins, Plekanec, and... possibly PK Subban? Well that was even more speculation on the peeps part so I won't even take that one seriously. We all know that everytime the word "trade" and "Montreal" come up it's always "Higgins' is going!" so I'll ignore that bit. BUT! I have to wonder... is Gainey actually still shopping around for that big impact forward? We know he had some epic fails on that front (*coughsBriereHossaSundincoughs*).

So the questions now are 1) do the Habs even need Lacavalier? I think Lang's just proved that we don't need Sundin or any other guy that resembles Sundin 2) More importantly.... will Lacavalier even want to play here? If Tampa Bay is going to trade Vinny here then they have to do it sooner rather than later because apparently his no-trade clause kicks in in the summer. From what I've heard, he would much prefer to stay out of the spot light for the most part so if they dudes in the office want to get rid of him, then they may want to do it on their own terms because there is no way that Lacavalier is going to want to come here if he prefers the quiet(er) life. 3) And then the really important but no so fun one: Is he even going to be avaiable? Vinny's agent says "no, management says he's staying put". Managament says "....." to the public from what I can tell. All that money that they spent on Lacavalier seems to indicate that he's staying put because the seize of that contract will make things difficult for teams what with the salary cap and all and therefore not a very attractive option. Seems to my tired brain that a team has to be pretty desperate to want Lacavalier. And besides... I still think that Vinny's been one of the better things for Tampa Bay this season so I don't see why they want to get rid of him.....

Okay enough of that now. My brain is shutting down big time at the moment and this is starting to sound like a mini Sundin saga again.... *runs away*

TENNIS!!!!

The beauty of time zone differences is that I don't have to suffer through potentially non interesting finals but still get to read about the results when I wake up. Lovely. Of course there's a downside to that too but I'll be whining about that next week during the Australian Open. *coughs* Anyway... So we all know that Mr. Murray had to go and win his first title of the year. Yeah, yeah. Very nice. But let's not forget that other people were playing too!

• With Nole crashing out in Brisbane the finals were pretty much anyone's for the taking. Surpringly it was Radek Stepanek and Fernando Verdasco in the finals. Well, considering that Verdasco was the third seed in that tournament maybe him being there wasn't all that surprising. But still.... this is Verdasco we're talking about. Anyway, Stepanek in all his horrendous fashion style glory ended up downing Verdasco in over 2 hours today in the finals. Not bad for a guy who just turned 30. Now if Stepanek can just dump the horrid purple plaidish farmer look we'll be all set.
  
• Verdasco continued to have bad luck in Australia as he also lost in doubles to Tsonga and... whoever Tsonga was partnered with. Oops.
  
• CILIC WINS! Everyone's favorite guy from Croatia won his second title and first of the year in India. He was up against no. 202 Somdev Devvarman. Yay for Marin though! I'm looking forward to seeing what he can do this year.