Montreal Canadiens Release 7 More Players, Get Closer To Opening Night Roster

The Montreal Canadiens played their 5th game of the preseason last night, and it was another loss, and they now have three games remaining on their exhibition schedule.

Oddly, all three are against the Ottawa Senators, so the two teams will play a little Best-of-3 series here to close out the exhibition contests. The games will likely begin to feature rosters that are quite close to the opening night lineups that will be revealed just over a week from now.

The Canadiens are inching closer to that 23 man roster as they work through this lengthy preseason, and just announced yet another slate of roster cuts. They have reduced their training camp roster by seven more today.

Canadiens cut seven more players from training camp.

The players that were released include Filip Mesar, Alex Belzile, Anthony Richard, Xavier Simoneau, Mitchell Stephens, Mattias Norlinder and Kevin Poulin.

Mesar and Norlinder will report directly to the Laval Rocket, because they are on entry-level contracts and do not require waivers. Simoneau and Poulin will also head directly to Laval since they are on AHL-only contracts and are not even eligible to play in the NHL right now, unless they signed an actual NHL agreement.

Stephens, Belzile and Richard will now go on waivers, but are all likely to pass through tomorrow afternoon and then report to Laval training camp which is already underway.

There are no real surprises in this list, but it is interesting to see Mesar going to the AHL and not the OHL. It could still happen, but it seems like the organization wants to see what their first round pick can do at the pro level first.

The Canadiens current roster now has 36 players on it, but that includes the injured Carey Price, Joel Edmundson and Paul Byron who are not likely to play at the beginning of the season, if at all.

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