Montreal Canadiens: Injuries Continue to Pile Up As Jake Allen Leaves Game

The Montreal Canadiens are playing their first game in 11 days tonight after a handful of games were postponed due to attendance restrictions in Canada.

The Habs were also dealing with an enormous bout of Covid that quickly made its way around the entire dressing room. At one point there were 22 players in COVID Protocol from the Canadiens roster and they had to play their last game, on January 1st, with just 11 forwards and five defenceman in the lineup.

Tonight, they finally got back on the ice and actually had something close to resembling an NHL lineup. They have a handful of players back from the Covid list and a couple of injured players are getting back to full health.

Unfortunately, it didn’t take long for the injury big to bite back. Canadiens goaltender Jake Allen, who, even with all of the postponed games, is now just outside the top ten in games started this season, left the game tonight in the first period. He hasn’t played since December 14th after dealing with injuries and then a bout with Covid as well.

He started the game tonight, allowing two goals to Brad Marchand in the first period, and then went to the bench at a TV timeout to talk to trainer Graham Rynbend who pulled Allen from the ice and the goaltender was replaced by Samuel Montembeault.

It is hard to say at this point if it was anything serious or just a precaution, but just when the team started to get healthier, they lose a key member of the team before getting through one single period of action tonight.

Allen had a 3.10 GAA and a .903 SV% entering tonight’s contest, handling a heavy workload in the absence of Carey Price this season.