Montreal Canadiens training camp groups and lines: Carey Price, Mike Hoffman ‘likely’ out for entire camp

The Montreal Canadiens opened their first training camp under new head coach Dominique Ducharme on Thursday, and there isn’t much time before the team’s first pre-season game on Saturday.

The team released news of the team’s physicals, and it wasn’t all good news.

Five players failed their respective training camp medicals due to injury, including forwards Paul Byron (hip), Mike Hoffman (lower-body) and Joel Teasdale (knee), defenceman Josh Brook (knee), and goaltender Carey Price (knee).

All are most likely out for the remainder of camp according to the team.

Joel Edmundson is currently day-to-day, and Brendan Gallagher has yet to report to camp for family reasons, and is expected to report in the coming days.

Usually the team gets a scrimmage in at the start of camp, but this year’s schedule has their scrimmage firmly between two official pre-season games. This means that the Red and White groups at training camp could likely be seen as the two groups that will take part in pre-season games.

Looking at the team’s schedule, it would appear the White group will get Saturday’s game in Toronto, with the Red group playing the Maple Leafs at the Bell Centre on Monday. In between, the two groups will play their annual scrimmage against each other.

Of course, on game day, there may be some changes based on injuries and players the coaching staff wants to get a closer look at but the majority of players in each group should be expected to suit up.

The Red group skated first on Thursday and included goaltenders Jake Allen and Michael McNiven.

Jonathan Drouin returned to the ice with the team, and skated with Christian Dvorak and Josh Anderson. Jake Evans skated with Joel Armia and Rafaël Harvey-Pinard.

On defence, Mattias Norlinder skated with Ben Chiarot, and Kaiden Guhle was paired with David Savard. Of course, Joel Edmundson’s absence is shaking up the pairings more than you would normally expect in pre-season.

The full lines for Team Red are:

Jonathan Drouin - Christian Dvorak - Josh Anderson
Rafaël Harvey-Pinard - Jake Evans - Joel Armia
Joshua Roy - Jean-Sebastien Dea - Danick Martel
Michael Pezzetta - Jan Mysak - Lukas Vejdemo
Gabriel Bourque

Kaiden Guhle - David Savard
Mattias Norlinder - Ben Chiarot
Corey Schueneman - Chris Wideman
Terrance Amorosa - Charles-David Beaudoin

Jake Allen
Michael McNiven

In the second group, notably Laurent Dauphin skated with Ryan Poehling and Artturi Lehkonen, while Alexander Romanov skated with Jeff Petry.

The full lines for Team White are

Tyler Toffoli - Nick Suzuki - Cole Caufield
Artturi Lehkonen - Ryan Poehling - Laurent Dauphin
Mathieu Perreault - Cedric Paquette - Alex Belzile
Brandon Baddock - Jean-Christophe Beaudin - Alexandre Fortin

Alexander Romanov - Jeff Petry
Brett Kulak - Gianni Fairbrother
Xavier Ouellet - Cory Goloubef
Louie Belpedio - Amber Xhekaj

Cayden Primeau
Kevin Poulin