Montreal Canadiens Have More Games Postponed

The Montreal Canadiens have had a handful of games interrupted by Covid once again this season.

The Canadiens were supposed to go on a road trip through New York just before the Christmas break but had all three of those games postponed. They also played their last home game in front of zero fans in the Bell Centre.

The Canadiens will play the Tampa Bay Lightning tonight and continue a road trip through Carolina and Florida later this week. Those games appear to all be a go at this point, but there have been many postponements throughout the NHL.

The Canadiens have nine players in Covid protocol, and if any more are added they would have a hard time putting together a full lineup. Regardless of whether they add more players to the Covid protocol or not, there are seating restrictions and crown limits in place in Quebec. The league does not want to play any more games with no fans in attendance as it just means the league loses revenue.

So, the league has decided to postpone a number of games in early January. Most of these games are in Canadian cities that have capacity limits in their buildings. The Canadiens will have four of their games originally scheduled to be played in early January postponed to a later date.

That affected games are:

Tuesday, January 4th vs the Washington Capitals. Thursday, January 6th vs the Toronto Maple Leafs. Saturday, January 8th vs the Buffalo Sabres and Monday, January 10th vs the Columbus Blue Jackets. Also, the Canadiens game that was to be played at the Bell Centre on January 12th against the Boston Bruins will now be played in Boston.

No dates have been announced for the makeup games, but many of them will likely be held in February during what would have been the Olympic break. There is currently a nearly four week open window between games for the Canadiens in the month of February that will now be filled up with a handful of these postponed contests, as well as the four games that were postponed before the Christmas break.