Montreal Canadiens: Making Sense of Habs Odd Opening Day Roster

The Montreal Canadiens were required to set their opening day roster by last night at 5:00 PM EST.

They needed to have a 23 man roster sent in to the NHL that was cap compliant. Of course, with all of their injuries, there are some complications brought on by the fact that Shea Weber and Carey Price could both be placed on long-term injured reserve if the team decided to go that route.

They did not, placing just Price on LTIR and they will swap him off that list for Weber when the goaltender is healthy again.

All of the salary cap theatrics brought on by LTIR are not even the odd part about the Habs opening night roster. The fact they are trying to maximize the amount they are allowed to spend over the cap makes sense. What looks weird is the breakdown of their 23 man roster. They have 15 forwards, just six defencemen and two goaltenders. That is three extra forwards, and zero extra defenders.

The Canadiens final roster moves yesterday to get set were to send Kaiden Guhle back to Junior for the season, send Cayden Primeau down to the Laval Rocket and claim Adam Brooks off waivers from the Toronto Maple Leafs. They also added Sami Niku to injured reserve, where he will join Mike Hoffman, Paul Byron and Joel Edmundson as well as Weber for now, before he is transferred to LTIR later.

That leaves the roster of 15 forwards: Tyler Toffoli, Nick Suzuki, Cole Caufield, Jonathan Drouin, Christian Dvorak, Josh Anderson, Brendan Gallagher, Jake Evans, Joel Armia, Artturi Lehkonen, Adam Brooks, Mathieu Perreault, Ryan Poehling, Cedric Paquette and Alex Belzile.

The six defenders on the roster are Jeff Petry, Brett Kulak, Ben Chiarot, David Savard, Alexander Romanov and Chris Wideman. Jake Allen and Samuel Montembeault are the two active goaltenders.

While it is odd that the team is carrying three extra forwards and no extra defenders, I wouldn’t expect that to last long. Niku sounds like he is quite close to returning from his injury and Edmundson should not be far behind him.

I think it is possible that Niku is actually ready before their first game on Wednesday night, and when he is ready to go, a forward will be sent down. The easiest thing to do is send Poehling down since he does not require waivers. If they want Poehling to play, then it would have to be Belzile or Brooks put on waivers to make a roster spot for Niku.

Once Edmundson returns, the Habs could then elect to either put a second forward (Poehling or Belzile, whichever one is not already in the AHL) in the minors. That would then give the team 13 forwards and eight defencemen.

When Hoffman comes back, then it would have to be a player like Niku or Brooks going on waivers to open up that final roster spot.

Ultimately, the team will quickly get to a 14-7-2 or a 13-8-2 setup rather than the unique 15-6-2 breakdown they have on their roster right now. It won’t take long either as Niku could be back in a matter of days which will bring them to seven defencemen and either Poehling or Belzile will be sent packing to bring the number of forwards down to 14.