In advance of Monday afternoon’s season-opening roster deadline, the Habs announced four more cuts from training camp. Heading to Laval are goalie Jakub Dobes, defencemen Adam Engstrom and Logan Mailloux, and winger Joshua Roy.
Dobes played in two preseason games last month including an impressive showing in a loss against Toronto when Montreal had a much weaker lineup relative to the Maple Leafs. He posted a 1.39 GAA with a .957 SV% in those outings and will return to the Rocket as their starting goalie, the role he held for most of last season.
Engstrom is entering his first year in North America after playing exclusively in the SHL last season. He got into four games during the preseason and was held off the scoresheet. He was however, more assertive in the final couple of games as he showed some signs of adapting to playing on the smaller rinks.
As for Mailloux, he had the most preseason appearances among the blueliners, suiting up in five of six games (plus the two rookie scrimmages versus Toronto). He was limited to just one assist in those appearances and wasn’t as impactful offensively as some may have thought as it looked like he was trying to work on his defensive play. He’ll get an opportunity to do that with the Rocket.
Roy is the biggest surprise of the group after being a regular for the final couple of months of the season. However, he was quiet in most of his five preseason appearances, especially relative to Alex Barre-Boulet, Emil Heineman and Oliver Kapanen who remain on the roster for now.
Depending on how Montreal elects to structure the timing of their LTIR placements, the team could cut several more players on paper before today’s 5 PM ET deadline. Speculatively, it wouldn’t be shocking for Arber Xhekaj to be on that list solely for cap management purposes; he’d be recalled on Tuesday once the LTIR placements are made.