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Plekanec approaching 700 games with Canadiens: 'It's unbelievable'

Winslow Townson / USA Today

Tomas Plekanec is as humble as ever entering his 10th season with the Montreal Canadiens.

Plekanec is on pace to play his 700th game with Montreal before the end of 2014, and he knows better than anyone that his tenure with the storied franchise is remarkable.

It’s unbelievable. People will ask me: ‘How long are you in Montreal?’ and I think, it’s been 10 years, 13 in the organization. And then I say to myself: ‘Holy [moly], that’s a long time these days.’ During my time here, there have been a lot of changes, a lot of players traded. But I’m still here, with a bunch of different management changes, too. It’s quite something, I guess.

The Canadiens selected Plekanec 71st overall in the third round of the 2001 entry draft. The 31-year-old has 439 points in 679 regular-season contests and is reportedly being considered for Montreal's captaincy following the departure of Brian Gionta.

“I haven’t really thought about it,” Plekanec told the Montreal Gazette. “We’ll see what management and the coaches decide. A lot of leadership is gone with Gionta and [Josh] Gorges and Danny Briere, but young guys are going to step up. They experienced the great [playoff] run we had last year so they will fill out that leadership."

Plekanec is used primarily as a two-way center, taking a large number of defensive zone faceoffs against opposing scoring lines. It will be interesting to see how he fits into a Canadiens lineup skewing younger down the middle with Lars Eller signed to a four-year contract extension and Alex Galchenyuk expected to assume a larger role.

“I’m sure we’ll talk about my role during training camp and I’m sure we’ll have more ideas during the year,” Plekanec said. “My preparation doesn’t change. I want to be in the best shape possible for camp and we’ll see how things will work out on the ice."

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