The Montreal Canadiens completely revamped their left defence two years ago. They traded Mikhail Sergachev to the Tampa Bay Lightning, traded Nathan Beaulieu to the Buffalo Sabres, lost Alexei Emelin in the expansion draft and saw Andrei Markov head back to Russia after a lengthy contract dispute.
Their plan for patching up those holes did not exactly work out since then. The biggest move that general manager Marc Bergevin made was to sign Karl Alzner to a five-year contract with a cap hit of $4.625 million per season.
They also brought in Mark Streit, David Schlemko, Joe Morrow and Jakub Jerabek that offseason.