Predicting the blueline for the Montreal Canadiens wasn’t too difficult of a task. Many agreed that the top-four would be made up of Victor Mete, Noah Juulsen, Jeff Petry, and Karl Alzner. The battle for the bottom pair most likely would’ve come down to Xavier Ouellet and Mike Rielly leaving Jordie Benn and David Schlemko for either a spot in the press box or on the waiver wire.
If you were along this wave of thinking, you were about 83% correct. Both Ouellet and Benn had solid camps forcing the coaching staff’s hand to get them in the starting lineup leaving Alzner to become a healthy scratch until Wednesday night’s victory over the St.