The Canadiens will be running with a very inexperienced back end for a while as the team announced Thursday night that Mike Matheson will be out for two months due to an abdominal muscle strain.

A Montreal squad filled with rookies took on the heavily-favoured Maple Leafs to open up the season on Wednesday and looked entirely like they belonged. A great effort helped them squeak out a last-minute victory for the 4-3 win with 17 seconds left in the game.

Last season, Nick Suzuki led the Habs in scoring for the first time in his career. Now, as the newly-minted captain begins his eight-year contract, can he build upon his production from last season?

Monday was the final cutdown day in the NHL with teams having to have their season-opening rosters set by 5 PM ET and with the Habs carrying a lot of players still, they had some work to do to get to that point and those moves have now been made.

With season-opening rosters due on Monday, Sunday was a very busy day on the waiver wire.  Montreal added two players to that large list, placing defencemen Corey Schueneman and Madison Bowey on waivers.

The Habs had one last chance to get in the win column on Saturday night before the preseason game to an end but came up short as they fell 3-2 in overtime to Ottawa, ending the exhibition season with a ‘perfect’ winless record.

It was only a matter of time before the Habs added a defenceman off the waiver wire.  That came on Saturday as the team claimed Johnny Kovacevic off waivers from Winnipeg.

The Habs have already returned Owen Beck to play in junior this season. While it might not be the popular opinion, they should be taking the same approach with first-rounders Juraj Slafkovsky and Filip Mesar as well.

For the third time in four games, the Habs took on the Senators in preseason action, this time in Gander, Newfoundland. The end result was slightly different from their first two meetings; the score was 4-3 Ottawa this time instead of 5-4.