The Montreal Canadiens training camp is over and the preparations for the regular season are already underway. But first, the team has to polish their roster a little bit as they are over the limit right now.
They have until 5:00 PM EST this evening to be down to a maximum of a 23-man roster that is salary cap compliant. A quick check shows they still have 36 players on their roster, so maybe they have more than a little bit of polishing to do.
That number is likely to be reduced to 32 as soon as Carey Price, Paul Byron, Joel Armia and Joel Edmundson are placed on the injured list. Price and Byron will likely head to long-term injured reserve which will give the Habs more cap wiggle room while Edmundson and Armia may just go to the injured list if they can return within the first couple weeks of the regular season.
If a player is placed on LTIR, they have to miss either 24 days or ten games, but the team can replace their cap hit with other players in the meantime. If a player is on the regular injured list, their roster spot does open up for another player, but their cap hit remains on the books.
The Canadiens placed Corey Schueneman and Madison Bowey on waivers yesterday, so both are likely headed to the Laval Rocket once they pass through this afternoon. That is, assuming they aren’t claimed by another team, but either way they won’t be on the Habs opening night roster.
That brings the Habs current roster down to 30 with seven more players to be demoted before supper time. Most of those players will have to be waiver ineligible because if they were going to be sent down today, they would have to have been placed on waivers yesterday to clear in time to be sent down.
That is bad news for Rafael Harvey-Pinard, Jesse Ylonen and Emil Heineman, but they will be the first forwards called up this season when the inevitable injuries occur. They may have outplayed a few veteran forwards, but large contracts are going to give those veterans another chance.
Heineman may actually start the year on injured reserve as well, and could be headed back to Sweden when he is healthy enough to play.
That would bring the Habs down to 14 forwards, which is the usual number for an NHL team. Typically, they will carry two extra forwards and one extra defender, or 14 forwards, 7 defenceman and 2 goaltender to get to that 23 man roster.
That would be fantastic news for first overall pick Juraj Slafkovsky. But hold on.
The Canadiens still have 13 defencemen in camp, but we already moved Edmundson to injured reserve and sent down Schueneman and Bowey. That brings them to ten. With so many young defenders battling to time, will they choose to keep two extra defencemen and only one spare forward?
If so, that would mean Slafkovsky needs to be sent down because he is the only forward that doesn’t require waivers left in this scenario.
We know Mike Matheson, David Savard and Chris Wideman are on the opening roster. Jonathan Kovacevic would need to go through waivers before being sent down so he can’t be demoted today. We know Logan Mailloux will be going to the London Knights as soon as he is healthy, so we have four locks and still nine defencemen in camp.
That means the Habs will likely keep three of Kaiden Guhle, Jordan Harris, Arber Xhekaj, Justin Barron and Otto Leskinen. None of them require waivers so any of them could be sent down at the last minute today. Or, they could decide to keep four of them, have eight defenders and send down Slafkovsky.
My guess is they will keep Guhle, Harris and Xhekaj as well as Slafkovsky and send down Barron and Leskinen. They also need to send down Cayden Primeau to get down to two goaltenders.
I could also see them sending down Xhekaj and keeping Leskinen to be the team’s seventh defender and serve as the healthy scratch to begin the season. But Xhekaj played well in camp and earns an NHL look right now.
That would give them 14 forwards: Cole Caufield, Nick Suzuki, Evgeni Dadonov, Juraj Slafkovsky, Christian Dvorak, Josh Anderson, Jonathan Drouin, Kirby Dach, Brendan Gallagher, Rem Pitlick, Jake Evans, Mike Hoffman, Sean Monahan and Michael Pezzetta.
The 7 defencemen would be Mike Matheson, Jordan Harris, Kaiden Guhle, David Savard, Arber Xhekaj, Chris Wideman and Jonathan Kovacevic as well as Jake Allen and Sam Montembeault in goal.
Of course, they could change all this by claiming another defenceman off waivers today, but that is easy to work around as they would then just have to send Xhekaj down to make room. Claiming a forward would guarantee Slafkovsky needs to be sent down and I just don’t see it happening. Claiming a goalie would mean they have to carry three until Montembeault passes through waivers which is possible, but unlikely.
Nothing will be set in stone until this evening, but the 23-man roster above appears to be what the Canadiens will use to begin the 2022-23 season.
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