Canadiens add 5 players and a coach to Covid protocol list.

It's probably not the way the Montreal Canadiens would have hoped to start their week.

According to an official announcement from the Habs on Monday, a whopping 5 players have been added to the National Hockey League's Covid protocol list and those 5 players will also be joined by one of the organization's coaches. The Habs have revealed that 4 defensemen, Ben Chiarot, Joel Edmundson, Jeff Petry and Chris Wideman have all been placed on the league's Covid protocol list, but perhaps the most dire bit of news is that veteran goaltender Jake Allen is the 5th player added to the list today.

While losing any of these players is less than ideal, Allen has been a workhorse for the Canadiens this season. Allen has been tasked with a heavy workload in the absence of star goaltender Carey Price who still has yet to play a single game this season. Of the 31 games the Canadiens have played thus far in the regular season, Allen has backstopped them for 23 of those which is huge considering he was brought in presumably with the thought of providing Price with some veteran backup.

Additionally the Canadiens have also revealed that goaltending coach Eric Raymond has also been added to the Covid protocol list, making this appear as though it is a relatively significant outbreak in the Canadiens locker room.

It will be interesting to see whether or not this results in further postponements for the Canadiens, as thus far early indications are that they are expected to resume play this week. Just this morning National Hockey League insider Pierre LeBrun revealed that the team is still expected to fly out to Tampa Bay, Florida later today, at 2 pm to be exact, but that could change given this most recent news.

LeBrun indicated at the time that testing for both teams could have an impact on whether or not they will indeed play on Tuesday, and with 6 new cases in a single day you have to believe that the league will at the very least take a look before giving the Canadiens the green light to fly into the United States of America.