HabsWorld.net -- 

While Montreal doesn’t play until next week and won’t practice until Friday at the earliest, they still are doing COVID testing and the end result is four more players and a coach going into protocols.

A pair of recent recalls are on the list in Rafael Harvey-Pinard and Jesse Ylonen and they’re joined by David Savard and Samuel Montembeault as players being sidelined while assistant coach Trevor Letowski is also out for the time being.

Worth noting, the province announced on Tuesday that they will join many other provinces in adopting the CDC’s recent recommendation that the isolation period for positive tests to go down from ten days to five.  Accordingly, while this group will miss some practices, they could still be available for the game in Boston next Wednesday.

Quietly, a handful of Habs have exited COVID protocol in recent days as Artturi Lehkonen, Mike Hoffman, and Laurent Dauphin were reinstated to the active roster although Dauphin was quickly loaned to the taxi squad.  As it stands, the Canadiens haven’t even designated all of the players who have tested positive as non-roster as Jake Evans, Alexander Romanov, Louie Belpedio, Brandon Baddock, Harvey-Pinard, and Montembeault all remain on their active roster.  That should change as other players are cleared to return over the next few days.