The Montreal Canadiens activities are currently shut down since the team is dealing with an enormous outbreak of Covid-19.
They last played on January 1st when they scrounged together 11 forwards and five defenders like they were teenagers organizing a pond hockey game on a snow day. Instead, they were facing one of the top teams in the NHL, and they held their own for a while before falling 5-2 to the Florida Panthers.
Part of the reason for the shorthanded roster was injuries, but it was mostly due to Covid.
The team just can’t shake this breakout and announced this evening that two more players have been added to the list. Kale Clague and Alex Belzile have been placed on the Covid list joining 20 other players and two coaches. Brandon Baddock, Paul Byron, Laurent Dauphin, Jake Evans, Rafael Harvey-Pinard, Cam Hillis, Mike Hoffman, Artturi Lehkonen, Michael Pezzetta, Tyler Toffoli, Jesse Ylonen, Louis Belpedio, Ben Chiarot, Joel Edmundson, Gianni Fairbrother, Jeff Petry, Alexander Romanov, David Savard, Chris Wideman, Jake Allen, Sam Montembeault and Cayden Primeau as well as goaltending coach Eric Raymond and assistant coach Trevor Letowski were already placed on the list earlier.
The Canadiens have been on a hiatus and not taking part in any team activities since their January 1st game. They were originally supposed to return to the Bell Centre for practice today, but that was recently pushed back to Sunday. With news that players are still testing positive, they may have to push it back again.
The Canadiens are scheduled to play their next game against the Boston Bruins in Boston on January 12th, which is next Wednesday.
The Canadiens have already had nine games postponed and need to fit them into the original Olympic break window. We will have to wait and see if any more games get postponed due to this outbreak spreading around the entire Canadiens dressing room.