Mike Brophy

Veteran hockey columnist Mike Brophy writes Mondays, Wednesdays and Friday on Sportsnet.ca and appears regularly on Hockeycentral.

Milan Jurcina is back in Washington after a very quick stop in Columbus.

On a day when no really big names moved, Washington made the most improvements among East teams.

Tomas Kaberle is still a Maple Leaf. Ray Whitney is still a Hurricane (that sounds funny). Jaroslav Halak is still a Canadien. Dwayne Roloson is still an Islander.

Where the heck were all the big deals?

Come on, let's be honest. When Dion Phaneuf, Ilya Kovalchuk and Jean-Sebastien Giguere all moved before the Olympic break, did we really expect a lot of big trades on deadline day? I know I didn't. And when the Toronto Maple Leafs traded Alexei Ponikarovsky the night before the deadline, I was further convinced we wouldn't see a lot of big-name players dealt today.

Some of the big names expected to move wound up staying put because the asking price was simply too high. Whitney, the player most expected to be dealt, will continue to work his magic with the improving Hurricanes and then hope he can attract interest as an unrestricted free agent in the summer.

The big question now is, did any team in the Eastern Conference do enough to guarantee they will go deep into the playoffs? The answer is no…with one caveat.

The already very strong Washington Capitals didn't bring in any stars, but they added four veterans to secure their depth for what should amount to a long playoff run. The Caps started the day first overall in the NHL and with the addition of forwards Scott Walker and Eric Belanger and defencemen Milan Jurcina, whom they traded to Columbus a few weeks ago, and Joe Corvo, they look very much now like a team that will challenge the defending Stanley Cup champion Pittsburgh Penguins for Eastern Conference supremacy.

The big question, of course, is their goaltending. Can one of Semyon Varlamov or Jose Theodore carry the Caps through four rounds of playoffs? Listen, as long as neither of them lose games for the Caps, the team will be fine. My guess is a lot of Caps fans will be holding their breath, though.

The Ottawa senators weren't busy on deadline day, but that's because they didn't feel the need to shuffle the deck. Bryan Murray, the general manager of the Senators, did enough tweaking of his roster leading up to March 3 that he might be considered one of the big winners when it comes to in-season moves that could positively affect his franchise this season. And the fact he resisted the urge to trade defenceman Anton Volchenkov, even though he may lose him for nothing as an unrestricted free agent in the off-season, is further proof the veteran GM thinks his team has a legitimate shot at challenging in the East.

Murray helped his team's cause leading up to the deadline by getting a couple of veterans, defenceman Andy Sutton and centre Matt Cullen. You add those two players with the fact Jason Spezza and Alex Kovalev have suddenly found their legs -- and scoring touch -- and all of a sudden the defence-first Senators look pretty good.

On a day when no really big names moved, no team other than the Caps made a significant change to its roster. The Buffalo Sabres are better with Raffi Torres on their side, but is he enough to make them legitimate challengers to go to the final? Not without Ryan Miller pulling rabbits out of hats he isn't.

The New York Islanders were mysteriously quiet. They had goalies Dwayne Roloson and Martin Biron up for grabs, but with Rick DiPietro's continuing injury woes decided to hang on to both of them.

Perhaps the biggest surprise of the day was the Philadelphia Flyers NOT trading for a goalie. The Flyers, picked by many to represent the East in the final prior to the start of the season, have been horribly inconsistent and now they are putting their faith in Michael Leighton, a guy who has never been a legitimate No. 1 goalie in the NHL. Good luck with that one.

Brian Burke of the Maple Leafs made his big splash before the Olympic break and although he admitted Kaberle consented to being moved to three teams (Burke would have preferred a list of 10), he held onto the high-scoring blue-liner. Rest assured Kaberle will be moved in the off-season and perhaps not to a location of his liking.

Did the Penguins do enough to take a serious run at back-to-back Cups? That remains to be seen, but the addition of Ponikarovsky is a good one, regardless of whether or not they are able to sign him in the off-season. This is a guy who just may blossom as a scoring ace playing on a line with Sidney Crosby or Evgeni Malkin.

All in all, it wasn't a mind-blowing day in terms of deals in the Eastern Conference.