The Montreal Canadiens are on fire. The team has won four in a row under new head coach Martin St. Louis, with Cole Caufield looking reborn. The team is still dead last in the Eastern Conference, but they’ve now passed the Arizona Coyotes and are at least showing some fight for the future. With that in mind, the team has issued several updates on their injured players, starting with Carey Price.
Price is “doing better” in his off-ice rehab, but he’s still not ready to return to the ice just yet. The 34-year-old goaltender has been out all year for various reasons and may end up missing the entire year. The Canadiens aren’t rushing anything in their franchise goaltender’s rehabilitation, knowing that there’s not really any benefit in getting him back into games this season.
Corey Schueneman has been cleared from the COVID protocol and returned to practice today. He was joined by several other teammates that have been dealing with injuries. Joel Armia was at practice, is listed as day-to-day, but won’t play on Saturday night. Mathieu Perreault was a full participant in practice and is also listed as day-to-day. Josh Anderson meanwhile has been cleared to play tomorrow against Ottawa.
The two big ones are Joel Edmundson and Jake Allen, who have been out for quite some time–or in the former’s case, the entire season. Edmundson was on the ice for the first time with teammates, and will travel with the group to Ottawa. He won’t play, but it’s great to see Edmundson back on the ice at all after the nightmare season he has gone through. Allen was also on the ice and is “progressing” though there is no clear timeline on his return. Nor for Paul Byron, who is dealing with an upper-body injury and has no timeline for a return.
The injuries this team has faced has been so incredibly difficult.