I stand corrected. The Habs do not have to protect Andrei Markov as one of their three protected defencemen for the expansion draft because he is a UFA. The Habs can leave him unprotected on the June 15th deadline, and then re-sign him. It does leave him exposed, true, but it is unlikely he jumps ship. He's 38, but having a very good year. He's better at 38 than Beaulieu, Petry, Benn, Emelin etc. Sign him at a slight discount: 2 yrs. $10 mil

Of note last night, Galchenyuk played 11:50 minutes as a winger, and not a peep from the rabid Habs crowd post game on their boards. If that had happened under a certain coach recently departed, viva la revolucion! It would seem that Mr. Julien is still in his honeymoon phase, turning the team around, tightening up the defence, Carey Price has come to life, playing smarter, secondary scoring. Of course, most of this is coincidental, except they are better on the PK.  Still not scoring much, guys like Pacioretty and Radulov not at all.