The Montreal Canadiens started the season with three goaltenders on their roster, making for an awkward fit in goal.
However, on defense and up front, they had one extra skater for each position so there was no worry about anyone sitting for extended periods of time. An extra defenseman can always rotate in on the third pairing and give players a night off when they are a little banged up, which happens frequently in the physical grind of an NHL season.
The inevitable injuries open up a roster spot, like Kirby Dach’s long term absence giving room for Michael Pezzetta, who was a healthy scratch for the first two games of the season, to gear up and get on the ice.
It also led to the call up of Joel Armia from the Laval Rocket. The veteran winger was sent down to the minors after a disappointing training camp, but played well and was the first person called up when an injury happened.
While this filled up the Habs roster, it also helped clear up a logjam that was the Rocket roster.
When the first game of the AHL season was played, the Rocket had a total of 17 forwards and nine defensemen on their roster, as well as three goaltenders. There is no roster limit at the AHL level so the Rocket may have needed a couple of dressing rooms for their practices that time of year.
That’s an incredible number of players when you think of it. That means there were five forwards that sat as healthy scratches as well as three defenders. Eight healthy scratches in a single game is quite a pile of players that you need to work into the lineup.
Since then, though it was just over a week ago, we have seen quite the roster shakeup at the AHL level. Armia was called up to the NHL, Filip Mesar was wisely sent back to the OHL after sitting as a healthy scratch, Emil Heineman and Gabriel Bourque were sidelined with injuries and suddenly the Rocket are down to 13 forwards.
They do still have a bit of a rotation going on with the defensemen, but things change awfully quickly with rosters at the AHL level. The constant change with players being injured, called up to replace injured NHL players, and newcomers arriving from the ECHL is a fact of AHL life. The Rocket have only played five games but they have already used 25 different skaters.
The logjam is cleared up, for now at least, so we should see a more consistent lineup for the Rocket for the foreseeable future.
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