Canadiens Notebook: Cole Caufield left for a week due to injury

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Cole Caufield will be out of the Canadiens’ training camp for about a week after sustaining an upper body injury during warm-up before Sunday’s Reds-Whites fight at the Bell Center.

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Head coach Dominique Ducharme said Monday that Caufield’s injury “is nothing major,” but the team’s medical staff will be very cautious with him and will not bring him back too quickly.

Joel Edmundson, who has yet to practice with the team on training ground due to a minor injury, skated alone again on Monday with a member of the team’s training staff and Ducharme hopes the defender will join his teammates in ice on Tuesday or Wednesday.

Defender Sami Niku, who signed with the Canadiens as a free agent last Friday, practiced with Team C on Monday in Brossard and will join one of the two main groups on training ground on Tuesday.

Canadiens forward Joel Armia played with Niku, a Finnish teammate, for a season with the Winnipeg Jets.

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“I really like him,” Armia said. “He’s a good boy. He skates well, he has skill. Very good offensively. “

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Gallagher joins his teammates

The best news for the Canadiens on Monday was that Brendan Gallagher joined his teammates on the ice at the Bell Sports Complex in Brossard after missing the start of training camp for family reasons. Gallagher will not be in the lineup Monday night when the Canadiens play the Toronto Maple Leafs at the Bell Center in preseason action. (7 pm, TSN2, TSN4, RDS, TSN 690 Radio, 98.5 FM).

Ducharme said Gallagher will play Friday when the Canadiens travel to Ottawa to play the Senators or Saturday at the Bell Center against the Senators.

“He’s always been the same,” Ducharme said of Gallagher. “He comes in, he has the smile. He has a lot of energy, we know that. And bring that around, in the locker room and on the ice. He is a committed player and it is always good to have him back on the ice like this ”.

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Drouin’s debut

Jonathan Drouin will make his preseason debut Monday night in a line with Christian Dvorak and Josh Anderson who have been together since the start of training camp.

Drouin has not played in a game since April 21, and he missed the regular season finale and the Canadiens’ playoff run toward the Stanley Cup final due to anxiety and insomnia issues. He received a very warm welcome from Bell Center fans during the Reds-Whites fight on Sunday, and they cheered on him every time he played the record and when it was shown on the giant screen.

“I think they are three different players,” Ducharme said of Drouin’s line. “We know Josh’s power, Jo’s vision and abilities. Devo is reliable, good on both sides, strong on discs, and we want them to use those assets and put them together. So I think when they play the right way they can be effective, obviously, offensively but also defensively responsible. Again, we will see. We will have more answers tonight. That’s what we want to see… skirmishes are one thing and playing against each other, but you never get the real feel for it. We’ll have a better idea tonight. “

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The lineup

Here’s what the Canadiens’ lineup will look like Monday night against the Leafs, and goalkeepers Jake Allen and Kevin Poulin are expected to play half of the game each.

Forward

Drouin – Dvorak – Anderson
Rafael Harvey-Pinard – Jake Evans – Armia
Danick Martel – Jean-Sebastien Dea – Jesse Ylonen
Michael Pezzetta – Jan Mysak – Gabriel Bourque

Defending

Kaiden Guhle by David Savard
Mattias Norlinder by Ben Chiarot
Corey Schueneman as Chris Wideman

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