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Habs ink Emelin to a fair deal

November 1, 2013, 10:58 AM ET [1517 Comments]
Habs Talk
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The Canadiens and Alexei Emelin agreed to a four-year extension, to the tune of $16.4 million yesterday. Say what you will about the risk of signing Emelin before testing out his newly repaired ACL and MCL, Marc Bergevin locked up an indispensable part of his team's defense yesterday, and likely did so under the expected value of Emelin's worth on the free market.

Cap inflation, Emelin's rare combination of physicality and skill being scarce on the market, and the general sense that he'll be at least as good as he's already shown are forces that make this a smart signing, and Arpon Basu at NHL.com outlines why the timing of this couldn't be better:

Bergevin has talked about the need to watch every penny under the salary cap to deal with the summer to come, when Subban’s contract could reach stratospheric heights and restricted free agent Lars Eller could be seeking a rich, long-term contract.

Throw in the possibility of re-signing Markov, who is playing some excellent hockey, and things start to look rather complicated for Bergevin this summer.

In that sense, getting Emelin signed at a fair, or even discounted, dollar figure was important in two ways. First, Bergevin has assured the Canadiens have half of their top-four on defense under contract. Second, and perhaps more importantly, the GM has a better idea of how much he has to work with in getting the other half signed.


Emelin spoke with reporters yesterday before the ink was dry on his new contract, having practiced for the first time with his teammates this season, albeit in a non-contact jersey. He revealed he's just a couple away from making a return.
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1) You can't expect Emelin to be at 100% in his first 10-15 games back. It may take him time to find his rhythm, and Michel Therrien will have to find the right way to reintegrate him into the lineup. I doubt that'll stop several fans from using those first games as evidence of this being a bad signing, but it would be wise to hold off before making any strong proclamations of Bergevin making a huge mistake with this deal.

By the same token, Emelin might start off better than expected and that could lead him towards a wall, down the stretch. Either way, coming back to NHL hockey after aggressive rehab and not playing a game in over six months is no easy task, and that's likely to show at one point or another.

This is a four-year deal, and it doesn't start until next season. For now, Alexei Emelin's being paid a prorated $2,000,000 to help the Canadiens win. At that price, there's no arguing how much of a bargain he is.

2) Surely you're aware that George Parros and Max Pacioretty were cleared for contact at yesterday's practice. The former will play against the Minnesota Wild tonight, the latter is slated for a return come Saturday against the Avalanche.

3) I've been reflecting a bit on the minute-to-minute analysis this job requires, and sometimes it's worth taking a step back to place things in the larger frame of an 82-game season.

We know that the success of the Canadiens boils down to the sum of their parts, rather than the play of certain individuals. This is probably true of every NHL team, but there are different degrees of it.

The Canadiens don't have the star-power that the Penguins or Sharks boast; they thrive on the balance of their team.

We spend a lot of time scrutinizing the performance of each individual, using that as a cannon to fire away at the coach for his ice-time allotments.

Let me be specific, and by no means is this meant to be an apology for curious decisions the coaching staff makes, but it stands to reason that Therrien's executed his mandate to make the Canadiens a very combative team in every game. They have their letdowns like any of their contemporaries do, but the likeable aspect of their team is that they compete hard. You can't really identify any primadonna types in their dressing room--guys that mail it in often, or guys that refuse to follow the gameplan.

Therrien believes in roles, he believes in trying to get the most out of each and every one of his players--and not just his best ones.

I can't argue that it makes sense that his Norris-winning defenseman isn't used on the penalty kill, but it is possible it has less to do with Subban and more to do with giving someone else a role.

I can't justify the coach's decision to play David Desharnais more than any one of his other centremen in any given game when he's got one goal in his last 30 games and a single assist through 12 games this season. But, Desharnais is a part of Therrien's team for the time being, and Therrien is doing everything he can to get him to produce. Desharnais' certainly not paid to win faceoffs and prevent goals, but those are positives for the coach to draw on in trying to inspire some confidence in a player that seemingly can't find it with a magnifying glass right now.

Desharnais' rope isn't endless. You may think it is, but with healthy returns for Pacioretty, Parros, Prust eventually, Briere eventually, he's going to have to put up or sit out.

It may seem like a risk to some that Michel Therrien would put Douglas Murray on the ice, protecting a one-goal lead with a minute to play in the third period, but a successful outcome in that situation is probably the best thing for the player's confidence, and that's a good thing for Murray and for the team. The Canadiens aren't asking Murray to play the 20:00/game he averaged as a top shutdown defender for San Jose over most of his career, they're asking him for 15:00 of hard hockey, and to be reliable in his own end.

Players don't go to the wall for you if you don't make them feel important. They don't combine for the most blocked shots in the league unless you make them feel important. And a team like the Canadiens don't win consistently without the commitment of all of their players. They may lose a few games throughout the season because of personnel decisions, and everyone will point that out loud and clear when it happens, but they'll win more often than not with a full boat of committed players.

You can rip Therrien a new one every time Desharnais plays two seconds more than Eller or Plekanec, and you can shred him for having Diaz on the penalty kill over Subban, but you can't deny that he's got buy-in from most, if not all of his players, and that's the biggest challenge every NHL coach faces. It's also the biggest reason this team was good last year, and has been pretty good despite injuries to key players this year.

4) It may not be the most exciting hockey to watch, but I expect the gameplan to be very similar against Minnesota and Colorado as it was against New York and Dallas. Therrien's got to rely on all three of his top lines, and needs to effectively use his fourth to grind down the opposition.

Having Pacioretty back on Saturday changes the dynamic. The team instantaneously becomes a more threatening offensive one, but you can bet the coaches will be hammering it home to the players that nothing should change. If the end result is that the Canadiens get a little more comfortable in one-goal games, that'll help them a lot down the road.

The biggest effect Pacioretty will have, aside from being the teams best threat to fill the net, will be deflecting some attention from Eller's line and freeing some of those guys up to get on the board.

5) I think it's a bit too early for speculation on Andrei Markov's future with the team, or even Brian Gionta's for that matter.

And what about Francis Bouillon? Doug Murray?

In all likelihood, with Subban and Eller to sign, one, if not two or three of those four players could be skating in different cities next season.

But Marc Bergevin's under no pressure to make those decisions right now. In fact, it serves him much better to wait on most of them.

Markov's been great so far, but there's a lot of road ahead. And it's not like he's not used to playing an entire season without having an extension in place.
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