Montreal Canadiens: Predicting Habs Final Training Camp Cuts

The Montreal Canadiens opened training camp last week with 74 players in attendance. Well, there were 74 players on the list, but a few of them were injured and we have not seen them hit the ice yet.

Included in that list are Carey Price, who isn’t going to play at all this season, and Joel Edmundson who is dealing with another nagging back injury. Paul Byron is also yet to join the team and it doesn’t appear likely that he will in the near future. That would rule him out for the regular season opener.

It also looks at this point that Edmundson is unlikely to play the Canadiens first game which is now less than two weeks away. Others that were initially on the injured list, including Nick Suzuki, Josh Anderson and Sean Monahan are already skating and should be factored into the opening night plans for the Canadiens this season.

With those three joining the team on the ice yesterday, and 23 players sent packing after a long list of cuts was announced, there are now 41 players left hoping to crack the Habs initial roster.

Some of the players still in camp have no real chance of making the team. The Canadiens have to play five more preseason games, in the span of eight days, starting tonight. So, they are going to need a lot of extra bodies around for the next week.

Then, they will make their final cuts sometime between their final exhibition game on October 8th and their first regular season game on October 12th.

So, who else is going to get cut between now and then? With 41 players still playing, not including Byron, Edmundson and Price, who we are assuming will still be injured to begin the season, the Habs need to release 18 more players to get down to a 23 man roster.

Let’s take a look at who is going to get sent down before the Canadiens drop the puck against the Maple Leafs on October 12th?