The Montreal Canadiens had high hopes for Karl Alzner when they brought him to town. The Habs had just lost in the opening round of the playoffs in 2017, then subsequently lost Andrei Markov to free agency, Alexei Emelin to the expansion draft and Nathan Beaulieu and Mikhail Sergachev to trades.
This decimated their entire left defence and left them scrambling to find replacements. The biggest piece of that puzzle was supposed to be Alzner. The defensive-minded ironman played a shutdown role for the Washington Capitals for the previous seven seasons without missing a single game.