Habs News: Montreal Canadiens, NHL, Bell Centre, Jeff Petry, Dominique Ducharme, Cedric Paquette, Xavier Ouellet, Louie Belpedio

ROCKET SPORTS MEDIA | MONTREAL, QC. — This is your one-stop destination every week day for your Canadiens news capsule. Here are your Habs Headlines!

Full Capacity

On Thursday, the Quebec government announced that it is easing COVID restrictions for sports and cultural events where attendees have assigned seats. As of October 8th, venues like the Bell Centre and Place Bell in Laval will be allowed to welcome fans to full capacity for the 2021-22 season. Spectators must present a vaccine passport and wear a mask at all times, except when eating.

“We are obviously very happy with the government’s decision to allow us to operate at full capacity again,” said France Margaret Belanger, President, Sports and Entertainment of Groupe CH. “It goes without saying that this is great news for all the culture, entertainment and sports industries which have been hit hard by the pandemic. We are excited to see the fans back in our venues and we will make sure to maintain the standards of excellence in terms of health measures to ensure a return to normality with respect to security.”

Under current restrictions, the Canadiens will be limited to 7,500 fans for Saturday’s pre-season game against the Ottawa Senators at the Bell Centre. Two weeks later, the Canadiens will welcome 21,105 spectators for the home opener against the New York Rangers.

“That’s exciting and good news,” said Jeff Petry. “It’s exciting to have the fans back in the building, back to what we all remember.”

“For (new) guys that are coming in here, the majority of them have played in the building for the visiting team,” Petry said. “But it’s a special place with fans in the building to be the home team and skate out. I think we’re all looking forward to that good news there.”

Add Another to Injury List

Forward Cedric Paquette missed practice on Thursday due to a groin injury. It was one more body added to the injury list as Dominique Ducharme is trying to assemble a roster for opening night. Coach Ducharme said that it is not a major injury for Paquette as he is expected to miss just a few days.

Defenceman Jeff Petry spoke about his taking time after the playoffs ended to allow his finger to heal. Petry fractured his pinky finger in Game 3 of the series against the Winnipeg Jets when it was caught in a photographer’s port.

“I gave myself three weeks off, maybe a little more, to recover,” said Petry. “I wanted my finger to heal before heading back to the gym, to avoid a kickback. I have recovered physically and mentally. My home trainer knew how much time I was spending there and adjusted my schedule to fit the schedule.”

Here is the Canadiens current injury list:

Cedric Paquette (groin) – day-to-day
Joel Edmundson (undisclosed) – day-to-day
Mattias Norlinder (undisclosed) – day-to-day
Carey Price (knee surgery) – mid-October
Cole Caufield (shoulder) – day-to-day
Mike Hoffman (lower-body) – mid-October
Paul Byron (hip surgery) – end of December
Josh Brook (knee)
Joel Teasdale (knee)
Shea Weber (multiple injuries) – out for the season

Forwards / Defence / Goaltenders – Team B

On Thursday morning, Team B – White practiced at the Bell Sports Complex in Brossard. These were the forward lines, defence pairings and goaltenders:

Tyler Toffoli – Nick Suzuki – Brendan Gallagher
Artturi Lehkonen – Ryan Poehling – Gabriel Bourque
Mathieu Perreault – Laurent Dauphin – Alex Belzile
Brandon Baddock – J-C Beaudin – Lukas Vejdemo

Alexander Romanov – Jeff Petry
Brett Kulak – Gianni Fairbrother
Tobie Bisson – Arber Xhekaj
Xavier Ouellet – Louie Belpedio

Cayden Primeau – Michael McNiven

Forwards / Defence / Goaltenders – Team A

On Thursday morning, Team A – Red practiced at the Bell Sports Complex in Brossard. These were the forward lines, defence pairings and goaltenders:

Jonathan Drouin – Christian Dvorak – Josh Anderson
Rafaël Harvey-Pinard – Jake Evans – Joel Armia
Danick Martel – Jean-Sebastien Dea – Jesse Ylonen
Michael Pezzetta – Jan Mysak – Alexandre Fortin

Kaiden Guhle – David Savard
Sami Niku – Ben Chiarot
Corey Schueneman – Chris Wideman
Terrance Amorosa – Cody Goloubef

Jake Allen – Kevin Poulin

Ouellet, Belpedio on Waivers

The Canadiens placed Xavier Ouellet and Louie Belpedio on waivers on Thursday. If the two defencemen clear waivers they will be sent to the Laval Rocket. The Canadiens AHL affiliate will begin their training camp on Monday.

Canadiens Connection podcast

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