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One of the big questions coming into this season for the Canadiens was who would play with Shea Weber on the No. 1 defence pair.

Nathan Beaulieu started out in that spot, but during the sixth game of the season Alexei Emelin took over and the Russian blue-liner hasn’t looked back since.

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Following Monday’s 4-1 loss to the Washington Capitals at the Bell Centre, Emelin had 1-3-4 totals in 39 games and was plus-5 while averaging 21:40 of ice time per game, up from 20:29 last season. The biggest compliment you can pay Emelin is that you don’t often notice him on the ice, unless he’s delivering one of his bone-crunching hits. That means he doesn’t make a lot of mistakes.

Emelin leads the Canadiens with 136 hits, 53 more than Weber, who is second with 83. Emelin ranks fourth in the NHL in hits behind Ottawa’s Mark Borowiecki (174), Toronto’s Matt Martin (146) and Anaheim’s Nick Ritchie (137).

Weber and Emelin were both minus-1 during Monday’s game, on the ice for the first goal by Nicklas Backstrom, who fought off Weber to get to a rebound before beating goalie Carey Price.