Good lord, look at these pairings the Montreal Canadiens are rolling out there tonight:

Acquired in the Tomas Plekanec trade prior to the trade deadline, the Habs will be trotting out Rinat Valiev on their top pair alongside uhhhh Jordie Benn. You know, for a team that supposedly had an extremely good defence heading into the season, Montreal’s blueline is looking mighty terrible.

Vailev played 10 games with the Leafs back during the 2015-16 Tank For Auston season and has been pretty solid in the AHL since then. That said, Valiev was jammed behind a group of young defencemen in Toronto including Travis Dermott, Connor Carrick, and Andreas Borgman, and it appeared that the Russian defender was happy to be dealt to a new team. 

We can either make fun of the Habs for having a Leafs castaway on their top pairing or we can make fun of the Leafs for trading away a top pairing defender for Tomas Plekanec. Either or, but I figured I would pass along the news.