The Habs have made their final two cuts to finalize their roster for the upcoming series against Pittsburgh and any playoff games after that.
Heading home are defenceman Josh Brook and centre Laurent Dauphin. Brook spent this season with Laval and there were some growing pains along the way although he showed some improvement as the season progressed. If nothing else, being at training camp gave him a chance to work with the coaching staff which should help his cause down the road.
As for Dauphin, he had a slow start with Laval after being acquired when he played in a bottom-six role. However, once he moved up in the lineup, he took off offensively and had played himself into likely being the next player to be recalled had it not been for the pandemic.
Those two deletions mean that Montreal’s roster sits as follows:
Goaltenders (4)
Charlie Lindgren, Michael McNiven, Carey Price, Cayden Primeau
Defencemen (11)
Ben Chiarot, Cale Fleury, Christian Folin, Noah Juulsen, Brett Kulak, Victor Mete, Gustav Olofsson, Xavier Ouellet, Jeff Petry, Alexander Romanov*, Shea Weber
Forwards (16)
Joel Armia, Alex Belzile, Paul Byron, Phillip Danault, Max Domi, Jonathan Drouin, Jake Evans, Brendan Gallagher, Charles Hudon, Jesperi Kotkaniemi, Artturi Lehkonen, Ryan Poehling, Nick Suzuki, Tomas Tatar, Jordan Weal, Dale Weise
* – Romanov is ineligible to play in any games, including Tuesday’s exhibition game against Toronto.
We’re now less than a week away from games getting back underway for real as Game 1 of the Qualifying Round series against Pittsburgh is set for this coming Saturday at 8:00 PM EST.