The Montreal Canadiens opened training camp on Monday, like the other 23 teams in the NHL’s return to play qualification format.
This comes less than 24 hours after The Athletic reported that multiple players tested positive for COVID-19 on Sunday night.
Missing from practice were Max Domi, who is waiting to confirm his presence into the team’s training camp as well as Alexander Romanov, who is making his way to Montreal and will then undergo a quarantine period where he needs four negative tests before taking to the ice. Xavier Ouellet, Josh Brook, and Brett Kulak were also out.
At forward, it does look to be a pretty standard lineup without Domi, with Jesperi Kotkaniemi taking a regular spot at centre, along with Jake Evans. For now, Ryan Poehling, Charles Hudon, Laurent Dauphin, and Alex Belzile are on the outside looking in.
Canadiens lines:
Tatar-Danault-Gallagher
Drouin-Suzuki-Armia
Byron-Kotkaniemi-Lehkonen
Weise-Evans-Weal
Hudon, Poehling, Dauphin and Belzile appear to be extras.— Аrpon Basu (@ArponBasu) July 13, 2020
On defence, with the bodies who are out, a little bit of a mix up, especially on the bottom two pairings. Noah Juulsen is on the left side as there is a shortage of left-shot defencemen in the current lineup.
ON D: Chiarot-Weber, Mete-Petry, Juulsen-Folin, Olofsson-Fleury
— Eric Engels (@EricEngels) July 13, 2020
It is still early days, but this gives you a good indication of how the team expects to line up against the Pittsburgh Penguins on August 1.
