Montreal Canadiens Protect or Expose: Alexei Emelin

With the NHL Expansion Draft on June 21st, the Montreal Canadiens writers on Last Word on Hockey are going to go in depth to see which players the Habs should expose or protect from the Vegas Golden Knights. Here are the rules of the expansion draft if you need a refresher. With Carey Price and Jeff Petry having no-movement clauses in their contracts, they are automatically included in the protected list. For the sake of this series, the Habs will protect four forwards, three defensemen, and one goalie.

With all that out of the way, lets look at Alexei Emelin

Protect or Expose: Alexei Emelin

Player Profile
Position: Defence
Age: 31
Height/Weight: 6’2” 218 pounds
Cap Number: $4,100,000 – 1 year left

Why Expose

Alexei Emelin’s biggest issue is his consistency. There are nights when he looks like he is a top pairing defender (usually against the Boston Bruins) and other nights where he looks lost. Emelin provides the Habs with physicality, but it can lead him to mistakes. Going for a big hit or misreading the play, he leaves his defence partner or goaltender out to dry.

When Claude Julien replaced Michel Therrien as Canadiens head coach, Emelin semed to struggle adjusting to the new system. He would wonder out of position trying to make a play much too often. Because of Emelin’s struggles, Julien scratched him for a game against the Ottawa Senators on March 18^th.

Emelin also has issues staying healthy. In the 2016-2017 season he set a career high with 76 games played. He also suffered a knee injury that kept him out of the final two games of the season and the first four games of the Habs first round series versus the New York Rangers. The injury required arthroscopic surgery after the season was over.

Why Protect

Emelin throws big hits and gets under the skin of his opponents. He finished the season with 241 hits, ranking ninth in the NHL and first on the Habs. He averages 3.17 hits per game and 8.93 hits-per-60 minutes. Because of this, Emelin provides a physical presents on the Habs blueline that is otherwise not very present. Outside of Shea Weber, the Habs defense is not known for their rugged style of play.

He played with Shea Weber for the bulk of the season on the Canadiens top defense pairing. The pair was maintained on the penalty kill as Emelin averaged 2:37 minutes-per-game on the PK. While the PK did struggle early in the season, ranking 22nd, much of the struggles seemed to be associated with the passive PK tactics of Michel Therrien. When Claude Julien took over in March, the Habs were instantly better killing penalties, moving up to 14th in the 24 games under Julien. Emelin was fourth on the team in average ice time, averaging 21:19 per game.

The left side of the Canadiens defence is a huge question mark this off season. Right now, that consists of UFA (and 38 year old) Andrei Markov, the much maligned RFA Nathan Beaulieu and Emelin. Their depth on that side of the blueline is cause for concern. With rumours swirling about Beaulieu’s future with the team, the Habs might not be able to afford to leave Emelin exposed.

Verdict

Expose

Emelin should be a no brainer to be exposed. He is a trusted player on the Habs, as shown by his usage 5 on 5 and on the PK. Still, his mental lapses and inconsistent play leave much to be desired. The paring of Emelin and Weber looked very solid when initially paired together, but Emelin began to struggle early in 2017. Furthermore, Emelin’s struggles effected the play of Weber as well. Eventually he was paired with Jeff Petry, but faired no better as his play continued to deteriorate

While Emelin’s inconsistent play alone should be enough to leave him exposed, his high salary is also a reason. He owns a $4,100,000 cap hit next season and the Habs could use that money to re-sign Alex Galchneyuk or Alexander Radulov.

Once the expansion rules were announced it was always going to create an issue for the Habs defence. Consequently, Habs GM Marc Bergevin was proactive in looking for solutions to this issue and signed Czech defensemen Jakub Jerabek to a contract in May. Even though exposing Emelin could create a serious issue on the Habs back end, its a risk they should take.