The Montreal Canadiens have dealt with a lot of roadblocks so far in the 2021-22 season.
They have dealt with injuries to star players like Shea Weber and Carey Price. They have seen some of their veterans like Jeff Petry completely lose their offensive touch.
A recent bout with Covid has sidelined nine of their players, but the team had to take on the Tampa Bay Lightning on the road last night with a severely depleted lineup. They will face the Carolina Hurricanes tomorrow night before taking on the Florida Panthers on New Year’s Day.
Another surge in Covid cases in the province of Quebec has also forced them to shift their schedule. The Canadiens hosted the Philadelphia Flyers on December 16th with no fans in attendance. Then, their home game two nights later was postponed. They then had a three game road trip through the New York are that was also postponed.
Though they are on a road trip in the southern USA right now, the Canadiens won’t be coming home anytime soon to play games. They were scheduled to play four home games between January 4th and 10th but all of those contests have been postponed. The government of Quebec will not allow fans to attend the games right now, so the NHL is going to push the schedule back to try and play the games later in the year when they can sell tickets.
After their New Year’s Day game, it is likely we won’t see the Canadiens again until they head to Boston to take on the Bruins on January 12th. Things might get back to normal at that point, but the league announced it will really be up to government officials whether the Canadiens play their home games on January 15th, 27th, 29th and 30th as well as February 1st.
Les @CanadiensMTL confirment à leurs détenteurs de billets de saison que les matchs des 15-27-29-30 janvier et 1er février pourraient aussi être reportés. Sans la présence de spectateurs, ils seront repoussés. Le gouvernement du Québec est celui qui prend la décision finale.
— Renaud Lavoie (@renlavoietva) December 29, 2021
Essentially what the league has said is that if the government allows fans in the building in January, the Canadiens will host home games. If fans are not allowed to attend those games, they will be postponed so the league can earn more revenue later in the season when tickets are allowed to be sold.
There is time to makeup these games in February since the league is no longer planning on sending players to the Olympics. The Canadiens do not have a game currency scheduled between February 1st and 26th.
Already, the Canadiens have had eight games postponed, but that could quickly increase to 13 if the restrictions on capacity in buildings stretches into February. At that point, the league would really be running out of time and might need to play games in February without fans.
Until then, we know the Canadiens will not play at the Bell Centre until January 15th at the earliest, and that seems unlikely at this point. Maybe that home stretch in late January will be played as scheduled, but that is up to government officials in Quebec at this point.