Canadiens: over $35 million missing from training yesterday

Yesterday, at the Canadiens’ training session, there were only 15 skaters. This means that six of the 21 skaters on the 23-player roster are currently in bad shape.

Juraj Slafkovsky (out for at least a few more days), Christian Dvorak (treatment day) and Joel Armia (treatment day after hurting himself in the last game) were the forwards absent.

Defensively, Kaiden Guhle (day-to-day for almost a week), Mike Matheson (who has been collecting treatment days for the past few days) and Justin Barron (who is expected to miss several games following the Rangers match) did not train yesterday.

That’s a lot of guys not at 100%.

If we add Patrik Laine, Rafaël Harvey-Pinard and Carey Price (who’s under contract and can’t play… so he counts), it’s starting to make for a pretty full list of players in bad shape in Montreal.

And in fact, it’s a bit like Groundhog Day. After all, in recent years, the Canadiens have been among the most injured teams. From 2022 to 2024, the Habs were even historically injured.

If you look at yesterday’s training session (today’s is a vacation, so you can’t rely on it), where only 17 players (including the two goalkeepers) were present, you can see that several million dollars were in the infirmary.

Isn’t that intense? And it kept a lot of guys from skating yesterday after a horrible game against the Rangers.

So, on a payroll of $88 million, the Canadiens had close to $36 million (over 40%) in the infirmary for yesterday’s practice. And let’s not forget that Slaf and Guhle are still on their rookie contracts…

Obviously, we can expect to see certain players play on Saturday (Joel Armia, Christian Dvorak and Mike Matheson are names that spring to mind), but still.

It’s crazy to realize that we’re 75 games away from the end of the season and that already, it’s an issue for the Flanelle, who haven’t played many quality games this season. We’re already at the stage of putting together an injury list…

Laine – Dvorak – Slafkovsky
Harvey-Pinard – Armia

Matheson – Guhle
Barron – Reinbacher

Price

I added David Reinbacher (who’s in the club’s entourage) just to make a top-4, even though I know he wouldn’t have made the NHL. As long as we’re having fun, we’ll have it all the way.

But the real question is why the Habs are in this position. Is the club too small and getting pushed around too much? Is the club fragile / poorly built? Is it bad luck?

Are the changes to the medical team not working? Who knows?

The Canadiens have three road games coming up: Sunday in Philly, Thursday in Washington and Saturday (not shown here because the game is in November) in Pittsburgh.

Will the Habs need to call up a guy from Laval to play? We can also wonder if the Habs want to call one back to stir the pot… but that’s another debate.

Apart from Saturday the 26th, when the Rocket will be in Utica, the Habs’ club-school will be in town until November 7th. I’m just saying…

Overtime

– He’s not injured, but he’s still making up for lost time.

Patience with Kirby Dach.

Maxime Talbot’s second column.

He recalls personal injuries to illustrate the challenges of returning to the game after a long absence.https://t.co/GjSfYqyj8x

– J-F Chaumont (@JFChaumontLNH) October 24, 2024