People are really underrating Montreal's D... It's a solid group of vets that will get the job done. The team will be top 3 once again in lowest GA, most of that achievement is on Price but the guys in front of him support him well too.
It's not sexy but it will be a very solid wall in front of Price that will be making very few mistakes. You will notice some trends in what MB has been doing:
1) Getting rid of guys who made a lot of critical mistakes and took stupid penalties, Barbereio Emelin, Beaulieu, Pateryn. All in favour of vets with size who make steady decisions.
2) brought costs down. Montreal's D was top 3 most expensive in the league the last few seasons, right now it's #9. Obviously that savings right now is sitting in free cap space, but that's room to improve the offence which I assume will happen at some point between now and February.
A lot of fans are angry about losing Markov, I loved him too, my favourite Hab, but let's face it he was old and slowing down, and not worth 5-7$ million.