Jayden Struble has played in only one of the Canadiens’ last five games

The Habs have just eight games left before the Olympic break.

This week, the Habs host the Wild (Tuesday) and the Sabres (Thursday) before playing in Boston on Saturday. The club returns to town for two games against the Golden Knights (January 27) and the Colorado Nordiques (January 29).

Finally, it's off to Buffalo (January 31), Minnesota (February 2), and Winnipeg (February 4) before the break.

Of necessity, we're asking ourselves a few questions about all this. How many games will Jakub Dobes be given? When will the injured forwards return?

It's likely to be tomorrow for Kirby Dach, for those wondering.

But there's also the question of when Jayden Struble will return to the lineup. Today at practice, there was no indication that he'll be back in the lineup anytime soon, for what it's worth.

In fact, in the last five games, Struble has played just once.

It's easy to make connections with Kaiden Guhle's return to action. The latter has played four of the last five games (#21 missed the game against Washington to have a gradual return to action), in fact.

Yes, the game Struble played was the one Guhle missed.

In fact, at practice camp, we imagined such a battle between Arber Xhekaj (who hasn't skipped his turn in over a month) and Jayden Struble.

At the moment, it's clear who has the edge.

Before Guhle's return, Struble rarely skipped his turn. It used to happen (Adam Engstrom played games here and there), but it wasn't as regular.

Keeping morale up can't be easy for him… and at some point, getting Struble to play will become important.

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Playing the American defender, however, is easier said than done. After all, if Xhekaj doesn't deserve to go out and the other five are healthy, it complicates the matter.

At some point, could Struble do as he did last year (and as Samuel Montembeault recently did) by playing rehab games in Laval?