The Montreal Canadiens have sent forward Rafaël Harvey-Pinard to the Laval Rocket on a long-term injury reserve conditioning loan, the team announced on Tuesday.
Harvey-Pinard missed all of training camp and the start of the season with a broken leg suffered during the off-season. The 25-year-old will get some game action in before returning to the NHL lineup. He returned to skating on October 17, and had his first full practice on November 17.
The Rocket have home games on Wednesday and Friday against Rochester and Belleville. They go to Belleville on Saturday for their third game of the week. It would be expected that Harvey-Pinard will play both home games assuming all goes will in his season debut.
Harvey-Pinard hasn’t played in the AHL since the 2022-23 season, and would require waivers to be sent there full-time. The Canadiens currently have an extra spot on their 23-player roster so no move would need to be made to put him on the NHL roster.
