Who should be on the Montreal Canadiens taxi squad?

Training camp will have internal competition and the Montreal Canadiens will need to look out for that when deciding who should be on the taxi squad.

For once, the question of, “who will be on the Montreal Canadiens this season.” is going to be fairly easy to figure out. Marc Bergevin has clearly established who his core is and with new additions to support it, it’s not too much of a secret who will be on the team this season. However, there’s a new group of players to worry about with the rules the 2020/21 season will bring.

The NHL is allowing teams to carry taxi squads with them throughout the season. Usually, when an extra player is needed, an organization can call them up from the AHL or their respective major junior club, but with the pandemic, that can’t happen as it normally would. Instead, teams will be allowed to bring a squad of 4-6 players with them who can fulfil this role.

The biggest benefits of this are 1) teams can safely have players with them all season to safely call up in the case of injury or any other medical reason and 2) these players do not count against the flat salary cap until they play in a game. This will be more beneficial to other organizations other than the Montreal Canadiens, but it’s still a bonus. Additionally, the Habs don’t have the most room in the world anymore only sitting $383,691 under the ceiling.

This taxi squad is going to be crucial. These aren’t only backup players. These are players who you should be able to depend on and trust to throw into the lineup and be effective in whatever role they’re placed in.

Games are all the more crucial as there are only 56 of them and four teams in each division make the playoffs. At the same time, the scheduling and placement of games is going to be different. Teams will have 3 or 4 games in-a-row against the same opponent and there is talk of multiple three-in-four stretches commonly seen in the AHL.