Montreal Canadiens lines at practice, July 20: Five players remain separated, Max Domi returns

The Montreal Canadiens started the final week of their Return to Play training camp after a day off on Sunday, and the group was once again split.

On Friday and Saturday, a small group of five players broke off into a small group that skated before the rest of their teammates. That group was Phillip Danault, Ryan Poehling, Victor Mete, Cale Fleury, and Cayden Primeau. That continued on Monday morning.

The group is out of practice for precautionary reasons, but not injury-related, according to Renaud Lavoie of TVA Sports.

The NHL’s Return to Play guidelines state that players with a positive test must isolate. The fact that they are skating at team facilities means that there is no positive test among the group.

Victor Mete said after practice that this is due to circumstances they cannot discuss and not due to fitness levels.

Max Domi was on the ice with the team for the first time at practice, and participated in drills with the second power play unit. He also skated with Alex Belzile and Laurent Dauphin.

Brett Kulak, and Xavier Ouellet remained out, as did Alexander Romanov. Romanov is still in Russia awaiting his Visa. Considering he still needs to quarantine once getting to Canada, he will not be taking part in any practices until the team gets to Toronto at the earliest.

The team travels to Toronto this weekend, and their only exhibition game will be on July 28. The team has confirmed that Romanov is not eligible to take part in that game. Their series against the Pittsburgh Penguins is set to start on August 1.