Jayden Struble: absent today, evaluated on a daily basis

This afternoon, the Canadiens are in New Jersey to face the Devils.

The game kicks off at 2 p.m., for those who weren’t aware.

Martin St-Louis didn’t speak to the media this morning, so there were two things to keep an eye on during the warm-up period: the identity of the starting goaltender and the presence (or absence) of Jayden Struble.

In the end, Struble did not take part in the warm-up session, and the Canadiens confirmed that he would not be in uniform.

The good news, however, is that we’re talking about a daily evaluation. So it doesn’t look too serious.

In the end, it’s Johnathan Kovacevic who will take his place on the blue line.

It’s also worth noting that Jake Allen will get the start and that we’ll see a change in the composition of the trios: Joel Armia and Josh Anderson have been switched.

That said, the good news is that Struble really does seem to have avoided the worst. There were fears of a major injury when he left the game on Thursday night, but we seem to have had a case of “more fear than harm”.

We know that the young man has often been bothered by injuries in his development, so we had reason to believe the worst. But at least there’s cause for optimism.

We’ll have to wait and see when the defender is ready to return to action, but the fact that he hasn’t been placed on the injured list (yet) suggests that we could see him again sometime this week.

And that’s great news.

Extension

On the Devils’ side, here’s what the lineup looks like for today’s game: