Montreal Canadiens: Covid List Leaves Habs Very Shorthanded Heading to Tampa Bay

The Montreal Canadiens past couple of games have been postponed or played in front of arenas with no fans in attendance.

They are finally scheduled to get back in action tomorrow night when they visit the Tampa Bay Lightning down in Florida. After a short break, the Canadiens players returned to Montreal yesterday for Covid testing and hit the ice today to prepare for tomorrow’s divisional matchup.

Unfortunately, they got some bad news with the amount of positive tests returned.

Jake Allen, Ben Chiarot, Jeff Petry, Joel Edmundson and Chris Wideman all tested positive and will enter the NHL’s Covid protocol. That basically means they are to stay home and quarantine and are not allowed anywhere near the team or arena for the foreseeable future. These five players join Artturi Lehkonen, Laurent Dauphin, Tyler Toffoli and Mike Hoffman in Covid protocol.

The Canadiens were already shorthanded from injuries and Covid tests, but this news really leaves them short ahead of a road trip down south. They added four defencemen to their unavailable to play list and will really have to scrounge together a group of six blue liners before tomorrow.

With Petry, Chiarot, Wideman and Edmundson out, we could see Alexander Romanov, Brett Kulak, Sami Niku, David Savard, Kale Clague and Corey Schueneman playing tomorrow night.

The team did call up Schueneman as well as Cayden Primeau. They also added Brandon Baddock, Cam Hillis, Gianni Fairbrother, and Michael McNiven to their taxi squad. So, they are essentially carrying half the Laval Rocket roster with them on this road trip that swings through Tampa Bay, Carolina, and ending with a game against the Florida Panthers on New Year’s Day.

It will be interesting to see what kind of lineups the Canadiens are able to put together in that time. They are not far off from having to use emergency call ups on Junior players just to fill out a lineup card, especially on defence.

With the team starting the season 7-21-3, it doesn’t look good for a turnaround anytime soon.