Report: Habs scratch two veterans ahead of match up against Pittsburgh.

The Montreal Canadiens will scratch two of their most experienced players ahead of a very tough match up against Sidney Crosby and the Pittsburgh Penguins. 

According to a report from TSN's Dan Robertson, the Habs will be fielding the exact same line up tonight that they did earlier this week when they faced off against a young and tough Toronto Maple Leafs squad. In spite of the fact that the Canadiens lost that game they managed to turn a lot of heads by taking the Maple Leafs to overtime and securing a point for themselves in the process. After what was a catastrophic season for the Canadiens last year the organization shed it's captain Max Pacioretty, one of the organizations premier offensive talents, and the expectation was that this would be a bad year for the team as a whole. 

The Habs however now have some new and younger talent on the roster and it was those talents that truly impressed on Wednesday, impressed enough it appears to earn another shot tonight against the Penguins over much more well established players. That means that both veteran forward Tomas Plekanec and veteran defenseman Karl Alzner will once again be watching the game from the press box, with no indication of when they may end up rotated into the line up. In the case of Plekanec the move is not all that surprising but for Alzner on the other hand this has to be a major red flag, both as far as the player is concerned as well as when it comes to the concerns of the fan base. 

Plekanec's was given a new deal by the Canadiens this summer, one that many believed was merely designed to see him play in his 1000th National Hockey League game as a member of the Canadiens franchise. Although Plekanec's is still 2 games away from that marker it seems a safe bet that the Canadiens will wait until they are on home ice in order to get him those games, and if the young guns continue to play as they have thus far it nay be some time before the Habs find an opening to do so. 

Alzner however is not at all in the same boat as Plekanec and is currently making a whopping $4.625 million for sitting in a V.I.P. area to watch the game. The biggest issue for the Canadiens though is not so much this year of Alzner's current deal, but the next 3 years of that very same deal. Alzner is under contract for 3 more seasons after this one, all of which carry an identical cap hit of $4.625 million per season. If he's not good enough to crack a defense as weak as Montreal's at this stage how in the world will he ever live up to the amount of money being invested in him as he continues to get older over the next several years? 

Prior to being scratch against the Leafs Alzner was on a very impressive 622 game iron man streak, and you can bet just about any money that he wasn't happy to have his streak end the way it did. Although tonight's scratch won't impact a streak that has already ended, this has to be extremely frustrating for Alzner.

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