Bob Hartley is always good for a quote, and he didn't disappoint yesterday when Craig Custance asked him about all of the nonsense coming out of Toronto criticizing the Southeast Division:

Bob Hartley declined to criticize the seeding system but defended the division.

"Are we weaker than the others? I don't know. If I go in the Tampa Bay locker room and the Carolina locker room, I'm sure you'll see team pictures with the Stanley Cup. ... That's a pretty good testament to those two hockey clubs, and those two hockey clubs appear to be in our division."

He added a few other comments on the topic towards the end of his press conference last night. By the way, if you don't regularly watch Hartley's post-game press conferences on our site (or via YouTube) you're really missing out.

If the Southeast division is as soft as Toronto wants to think it is they shouldn't have left so many points on the table versus Florida, Washington and Atlanta. The Leafs were 5-6-1 against that trio of teams, though they did take care of business by sweeping Tampa Bay and winning three of four versus Carolina.

And how about Slava Kozlov folks? He gets knocked for being streaky, but boy is hot at the right time now. Four goals in two games, a new career high in points, a new franchise record for game-winning goals in a season and three game-winners in March. I can't wait to see what this guy does when he gets back to the playoffs for the first time since 2001.Throw in Bobby Holik and Scott Mellanby and you have some historic playoff performers who have an incredible hunger to get back to the greatest tournament in sports.

12 days until the post-season...