Montreal Canadiens: Karl Alzner Just Needs To Be Karl Alzner

Now signed to play for the Montreal Canadiens for the next five years, it’s important that Karl Alzner sticks to his style and doesn’t try to do more this season.

Player contracts can do a lot for a player before they even hit the ice. It shows how much they contribute to the overall team’s cap and, in some ways, how valued they are. Unfortunately, there’s another thing that contract’s do, which has been seen when it comes to the Montreal Canadiens. How much a player makes may also create expectations.

It’s not just by position or point totals in how a player is categorized. It can also be by how much they make. The way you think of someone who makes say $7 million a season is different from someone who makes $1 million.

This is how expectations can go wrong. Team’s are always overpaying on Free Agent Frenzy. Because of that, players who should be making a certain amount of money per season, usually make an extra million or two. However most fans don’t consider that, they see the value and make their own judgements.

The Montreal Canadiens signed Karl Alzner to a five-year deal on July 1st worth $4.625 million per season. That’s a $1.825 million raise from his last contract. Because of the cap hit, there may be some who will expect more from the 28-year-old.

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It’s always in a player’s best interest to improve each year, but for Alzner to be the best he can be for the Canadiens, he has to stay exactly the way he is.

Don’t Change Alzner

The veteran defenceman finished last season with three goals and ten assists with the Washington Capitals. That was seven fewer points than he had the previous year. Some fans may look at his new cap-hit and think that he needs to produce more. They may hop onto Capfriendly.com and notice that his closest contract comparable is Jason Demers who finished with 28 points.

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They may even completely forget that Alzner is a shutdown defenceman and doesn’t go for the points. The fact of the matter is that the Montreal Canadiens brought him on to stabilize the blue-line. Head coach Claude Julien was able to decrease scoring chances given up when he was hired, and Alzner should be able to push that notion further.

Alzner isn’t the defenceman that you notice. In fact, the best thing about his gameplay is that you rarely notice him at all. He does the little things to ensure that the other team doesn’t get a chance to score.

Julien will probably start the season with Alzner playing with Shea Weber. If that happens, he can let his partner worry about the offence and physicality. It’ll be the same if he ends up playing with Jeff Petry on the second pair.

The most important thing for him is to not think that he has to do more. I’m sure Canadiens’ management has already sold this point to him already. It’s the players that do too much after signing a new deal that seem to fall off the following year.

He definitely wouldn’t want that to happen. Then Montreal Canadiens fans would really have a reason to say that he’s overpaid.

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Do you think Alzner is worth the cap-hit? Will he stick to his own style this season? Let us know your thoughts in the comments!