After a forced week’s rest, the Canadian will finally resume training on Sunday morning at the Bell Sports Complex in Brossard.
The action will have to be watched very carefully once there, as over the past few days the Canadian has competed with Black Sabbath for the most different members to leave and join its ranks.
Let’s go with the tally.
Since mid-December, all of these names have been submitted to the NHL’s COVID-19 protocol: Artturi Lehkonen (as of December 18), Laurent Dauphin (December 19), Mike Hoffman (December 20), Tyler Toffoli ( December 27), Jake Allen (December 27), Ben Chiarot (December 27), Joel Edmundson (December 27), Jeff Petry (December 27), Chris Wideman (December 27), Éric Raymond (goaltender coach, December 27), Paul Byron (December 29), Cayden Primeau (December 29), Louie Belpedio (December 30), Gianni Fairbrother (December 30), Brandon Baddock (December 31), Jake Evans (1er January), Alexander Romanov (1er January), Rafaël Harvey-Pinard (January 4), Jesse Ylönen (January 4), David Savard (January 4), Samuel Montembeault (January 4), Trevor Letowski (assistant coach, January 4), Cameron Hillis (January 5), Michael Pezzetta (January 5), Alex Belzile (January 7) and finally Kale Clague (January 7).
If we calculate correctly, we arrive at a total of 24 players and two members of the coaching staff sidelined due to COVID-19 at the Canadiens. They are the most affected team in the entire NHL in this regard.
By way of comparison, the Boston Bruins, the Canadiens’ next opponents, have a total of three players subject to COVID-19 protocol at the moment, namely Karson Kuhlman, Jake DeBrusk and Tomas Nosek.
The green light is long overdue
So far, none of the Canadiens’ players subject to the COVID-19 protocol have been given the green light to return to the game, but the players who were the first to be part of the present outbreak, such Lehkonen and Dauphin, be on the ice Sunday morning in Brossard. In total, about fifteen players should take part in the training.
We will understand that time is starting to press a bit for the Canadian, who has a game scheduled for Wednesday, January 12 in Boston, a game against the Bruins that was to be presented at the Bell Center; this meeting will be added to the Canadiens’ local games postponed to a date that remains unknown.
Five other home games for the Canadiens have already been postponed since the start of the month, and we can expect the same fate to befall the last three games on the Bell Center schedule in January.
During the Montreal club’s last game, the 1er In January in Sunrise, Fla., only 16 players and two goalies were able to join the squad, which suffered a 5-2 loss to the Panthers. The Canadian has won only one victory in his last 10 games.