With Laval finishing their season up on Monday, the Habs were able to make their end-of-season recalls to establish their ‘Black Aces’ for the playoffs. They did just that on Tuesday, recalling nine players.
The players that will continue their season with the Canadiens are as follows:
Goalies: Michael McNiven, Cayden Primeau
Defence: Cale Fleury, Otto Leskinen, Xavier Ouellet
Forwards: Alex Belzile, Laurent Dauphin, Lukas Vejdemo, Jesse Ylonen
Of note, Ryan Poehling’s season ended earlier this month when it was announced that he’ll need wrist surgery. Josh Brook is another prospect of note on this list but he was injured over the weekend against the Marlies which took him out of the equation. Among the notables that weren’t brought up were defenceman Gustav Olofsson and Jordan Weal, the latter having played a regular role with the Habs for most of last season.
The majority of the players on this list have spent time with the Canadiens over the past couple of seasons as McNiven and Dauphin are the only ones who have yet to play for them. In terms of who would be likeliest to play if enough injuries arose, Ouellet and Belzile are the probable options among the skaters given their postseason experience from last season.
Montreal will also have the players from the taxi squad available to them as Michael Frolik was added to the roster after the regular season ended. He and the others on this list will be joined by Cole Caufield, Jesperi Kotkaniemi, and Alexander Romanov as head coach Dominique Ducharme indicated today that they will not be in the lineup when their series against Toronto begins on Thursday.