Montreal Canadiens Make Final Cuts, Roster Set For Opening Night?

The Montreal Canadiens need to get their roster down to 23 players by 5:00 PM EST today in order to be cap compliant to begin the season. After a lengthy preseason, they had some tough decisions to make up front and on the blue line.

The team announced their final round of cuts this afternoon, sending five players to the Laval Rocket. Those players will report immediately and will suit up for the Rocket’s opening game on Friday night.

The Canadiens began training camp with 74 players in attendance, and still had 36, including a couple of injured players, as of this morning. So we knew they had some work to do to get that number down to 23.

Canadiens send five players down to Laval Rocket

Earlier today, the team announced that Jesse Ylonen, Rafael Harvey-Pinard, Justin Barron, Otto Leskinen and Cayden Primeau have been sent down to the Rocket.

Ylonen was a second round pick in 2018 and made a strong case to grab a roster spot. However, the Canadiens just have too many veteran forwards under contract, and chose to give Juraj Slafkovksy the final spot up front instead of Ylonen.

Harvey-Pinard, like Ylonen, has some NHL experience already and will likely be called up again early this season. He was a 7th round pick in 2019, but is on the cusp of being a full time NHL role player and will surely get plenty of NHL games this season.

Barron played a handful of NHL games himself last season, but the 20 year old just needs a little more seasoning at the minor league level before becoming a full time NHL player. He should play a big role on the Rocket blue line this season.

Leskinen had a chance to play his way onto a young Canadiens blue line but just didn’t stand out enough in training camp. The 25 year old would have been an ideal number 6 or 7 defender but he was simply outplayed by the likes of Arber Xhekaj and Kaiden Guhle.

Primeau was destined to play most of this season in the AHL with Jake Allen and Sam Montembeault filling the crease for the Canadiens. This is the final year he does not need waivers to be sent down so it should also be his final AHL season.

Corey Schueneman and Madison Bowey are currently on waivers and will likely head to the Rocket later today as well. We will have to see if the Canadiens have their eye on anyone who is on waivers, and if they claim a defenceman, we could see Arber Xhekaj sent down as well.

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