After playing the past seven seasons in Russia with Tolyatti Lada and Kazan Ak-Bars, rugged defenseman Alexei Emelin decided to come to North America to make his NHL debut for the team that drafted him 84th overall way back in 2004. In 2010-11, Emelin had his best offensive season in the KHL, registering 11 g and 15 assists for 26 points, while earning 117 penalty minutes. He also finished the year with a +16 ratio.Despite playing in Russia for what seems like an eternity, Emelin is still only 25 years-old, the moment most defensemen reach their maturity and full potential. While Emelin will never be a constant point-producer in the NHL, he can certainly do better than his 0 point in 14 games so far for the Canadiens this season. Emelin has proved that he can block shots and make a good first pass. But right now, it's clear he is focusing on the defensive aspect of his game, but he showed in the KHL that he can contribute offensively too.
Often a healthy scratch at the beginning of the season, Emelin has now played the last six games due to a rash of injuries on Montreal's blue line and has slowly adjusted to the smaller NHL rinks and the more physical style played in North America. The 6'2'' 220 lb rearguard looks a lot like Red Wings Nicklas Kronwall when he made his North America debut in 2003-04. Kronwall is a hard-hitting defenseman that developed his offensive skills over the years to become Detroit's most important defenseman behind Nicklas Lidstrom. The former has amassed 191 points in 405 games in the NHL, or also one point every two games. Emelin is still far from producing offensively at such a good pace, but let's not forget Kronwall only registered 14 points in 47 games over his first two NHL seasons.
Emelin is currently ranked 32nd in the NHL in total hits with 49 in only 14 games (3.5 hits per game), but is ranked 6th for hits per game behind the likes of Matt Martin, Cal Clutterbuck, Troy Brouwer, Mark Fistric and Steve Ott. Not bad for rookie defenseman used to play in the KHL, not a league that is known for its physical play.
Alexei Emelin hip-checking Ales Hemsky at the blue line
Alexei Emelin with another hip-check on Tomas Vincour
Emelin is by far the Habs most physical defenseman as the rest of the defensive corps is composed of smaller players (Diaz, Weber, Spacek, Gorges) or softer players (Gill, Markov, Campoli) than the Togliatti, Russia, native.
Currently earning $984,200 this season with the Canadiens, Emelin will be a restricted free agent at season's end, so the team will have to decide if they want to sign him long-term in order to prevent him from returning to Russia. The left-handed blue-liner moved to North America in part because of Andrei Markov, who has yet to play this season recuperating from a knee injury that sidelined most of last season.
One has to wonder if Jacques Martin will reunite the two Russians on a defensive pairing in order to groom the young Emelin along a proven veteran to back him up and repair his occasional blunder. Once Emelin earns the confidence of his head coach, he will most likely receive more power play time than the 2:11 minutes he received so far this season!!
Through 14 games this season, Emelin is only seeing 15:11 minutes of time per game despite all the injuries the Canadiens sustained on the blue line. However, when Emelin gets more ice-time on the special units (playing only 43 seconds per game on the penalty kill this season), his ice-time will increase exponentially. With only four penalty minutes, Emelin has been very disciplined despite his rugged style. He has also taken only one penalty while drawing seven, which ranks him 7th in the NHL with a very positive ratio.
Now the question remains: Will Emelin be dressed over smaller defensemen Raphael Diaz and Yannick Weber when the Andrei Markov and Jaroslav Spacek come back into action in early December? Or will Emelin be made a healthy scratch more often than not?
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Fred is a freelance sports write and translator, as well as a featured Montreal Canadiens blogger on http://hockeyindependent.com/blog/ and a baseball columnist on http://www.dobberbaseball.com/. Fred also joined HabsAddict.com in time for the 2011-12 season.
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