The Montreal Canadiens announced today that Jonathan Drouin will be taking an indefinite leave of absence from the team.
They didn’t give any specifics to the situation, but he was officially placed on long-term injury reserve by the club today as well.
Drouin is second on the team in assists this season with 21, but has scored just two goals in 44 games.
There is no reason to speculate on what lead to this situation. Drouin was ruled out of the last few games with a “non-covid related virus” according to the team. Whatever is going on with Drouin, let’s put hockey aside for a second and just wish him all the best in his recovery from whatever situation he is dealing with. It’s easy to say players should just deal with what is going on because they get paid a lot of money, but you can’t put a price on a player’s mental health.
All the best Drouin, we hope to see you back at 100% in the near future and can’t wait to see you fire a perfect pass across the ice to set up a Cole Caufield goal.
As for Drouin’s roster spot, the Canadiens do have added cap flexibility now. They can keep Caufield in the lineup under an “emergency basis” as they don’t have enough healthy forward to play against the Toronto Maple Leafs tonight.
It will be interesting to see how the Habs shape their lineup, with an extra roster spot and some salary cap wiggle room. It was thought they didn’t have the space to have Alexander Romanov join the team from the taxi squad without sending Caufield down to either the Laval Rocket or the taxi squad.
The Canadiens face the Maple Leafs tonight in the first of four regular season meetings left before a very probable first round playoff matchup.