Canadiens: St-Louis Puts A Reduced Group Through Its Paces

The Montreal Canadiens were back in Brossard for practice yesterday, but it wasn't a big group.

The 4 Nations Face-Off break is now over for the Montreal Canadiens and it was time to get back to work on Monday afternoon, at least for some players. Samuel Montembeault is still in Boston since Canada has booked its ticket to the final on Thursday night. As for the Canadiens' Finnish contingent, it's still in Boston as well, Patrik Laine and Joel Armia are expected back on Friday. 

Josh Anderson and Michael Pezzetta weren't at practice either. Anderson was having a therapy day, most probably to work on the injury that has been nagging him for some time. As for Pezzetta, he is dealing with a lower-body injury sustained before the break and he will be evaluated on a day-to-day basis. Kaiden Guhle is still out for an indefinite period of time and there's no update on his status. 

As for Emil Heineman, he skated on his own before the main practice and Martin St-Louis said he was getting closer to returning and would be evaluated this week. Asked about Laine's declaration about getting more ice time at the 4 Nations and how he saw the future with him, the coach gave a diplomatic answer:

I think it's day to day, I mean if you play 11 minutes, show me that you should play more. ... My goal is not to play Patty a certain amount of minutes, it's too push him to give us more. 

There were only 14 players at practice: Cole Caufield, Kirby Dach, Christian Dvorak, Jake Evans, Brendan Gallagher, Alex Newhook, Juraj Slafkovsky, Nick Suzuki, William Carrier, Lane Hutson, Mike Matheson, David Savard, Jayden Struble, Arber Xhekaj and Jakub Dobes. 

Owen Beck and Logan Mailloux were not present since they were sent down to the Laval Rocket for the break. Pascal Vincent's men have a pair of home games against the Manitoba Moose on the calendar (Wednesday and Friday) before the Canadiens return to action on Saturday against the Ottawa Senators, so it's not surprising Beck and Mailloux haven't been called back up yet. 

St-Louis mentioned it wasn't easy to hold a practice with just 14 guys and that he expected to have a more traditional practice on Friday when everyone's back in town. 

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