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So let's see: Five of the eight playoff teams in the Eastern Conference and both squads on the margins of the NHL postseason picture made significant deadline pick-ups to tweak their lineups.

Three did not: One that employs all-world goaltender Martin Brodeur, another that has all-world scorer Alex Ovechkin, and the Montreal Canadiens.

Habs general-manager Bob Gainey said his decision to sit out the deadline-day merry-go-round yesterday is a strong "vote of confidence for the players we have."

But it's also plain Gainey believes his group no longer has any excuses to underperform.

"We've got a number of players who have been a little below their potential this year for different reasons, this is their time to prove me right … and for the coaches to take the players that they have and squeeze as much or more out of this team than we've seen to this point," he said.

It was an unusual shot across the coaching staff's bow from Gainey, who has a close relationship with head coach Guy Carbonneau and his assistants.

And beyond all that, the organization insists it likes its chances of a long, centennial-season playoff run with the horses currently in the stables.

It's not fair to say the Habs have been totally inactive; they just did their shopping before deadline day (as did the New Jersey Devils), adding defenceman Mathieu Schneider and centre Glen Metropolit on the heels of a 4-11-1 rough spell.

The difficulty is that all the teams below Montreal, which sat fifth in the conference going into last night's game against the Buffalo Sabres, have improved in areas the Habs lack: grit, defensive play, secondary scoring.

"I'm not really going to judge what the other teams did … usually what bothers me more is the teams that don't move, because they feel that they've got what they need," Gainey said.

That group implicitly includes the Habs, but few would pick them to go further in the playoffs than New Jersey and the Washington Capitals.

Gainey said he realized early this would be a seller's market, and that the big-ticket additions he might consider would likely come at too steep a price.

"Most of our poking and prodding happened a couple of days ago. … I don't really have any regrets with the players who moved teams today that none of them came to our team," he said.

The Canadiens did have interest in new Calgary Flames centre Olli Jokinen, but said "we didn't show the type of pursuit on that player that would have put us on [the Phoenix Coyotes'] list as being a good trading partner."

Gainey said his team's failings on paper — the Habs are small down the middle and lack the kind of abrasiveness that tends to fuel successful playoff teams — may not end up hurting them.

"If you look back at the Canadiens team that won [the Stanley Cup] in 1993, I think you could find some places on their team where on paper that they didn't have the players they needed," he said.

The Habs will soon add more scoring punch with the return of the injured winger Alex Tanguay — likely tomorrow — and the eventual return of Guillaume Latendresse, in roughly two weeks. And with the likes of Gregory Stewart and Georges Laraque, Montreal can boast plenty of toughness.

In the end, none of the trade discussions Gainey held would have altered the team in a way to justify the cost.

"We got into discussions with a team in December that would have broken our direction of our team, and nothing like that came by us in the last two weeks," he said in an oblique reference to talks over Tampa Bay Lightning centre Vincent Lecavalier, who is already being speculated about as being an off-season target of the Habs.