The Montreal Canadiens have reached a 2 year deal with hard hitting Alexei Emelin. Emelin finished last season with 3 goals and 4 assists in 67 games, two of those points came while shorthanded. Emelin averaged about 3.5 hits per game last year, almost all of them of the bone-rattling variety. During the 2011-12 season, Emelin played the 3rd most time at even strength per game of all defenders at 15.22 minutes, showing that he was trusted to handle a lot of minutes in that scenario. Emelin also put up the second best Relative Corsi score of the Habs defense among those players who played more than 20 games and -0.1. The 26 year old Russian impressed fans throughout the season with his continual improvement, agitation, and pure physicality. It only took him a couple months in the league to be named one of the game's best hitters. Update: According to Renaud Lavoie, Emelin's contract is $2M per season