After days or waiting for his visa, Alexander Romanov is finally on his way to Canada. Yes, I said Canada and not Montreal. Since the Habs are set to travel to Toronto on the 26th (Sunday), there's not point for Romanov to go to Montreal since he won't be done with his quarantine period by then. While the federal government waived the 14 days mandatory quarantine for the hockey players, they still have to comply with the cohort quarantine plan. Which means that the players cannot be in contact with anyone outside of their cohort and that will be the case in the bubble cities as well. Furthermore, we've seen in the past that the Habs have asked their players to isolate for 7 days before joining the team training sessions and pass 4 negative Covid test. By the time the team gets to Toronto, Romanov will nearly be done with the isolation. Need I remind you that Romanov will not be allowed to play in the play-in series against the Penguins, but it's still a good thing for him to spend time with the team and get used to the Habs system. Of course, this burns a year of his contract but the team is keen to be able to give him a competitive salary soon to avoid any temptation to return to the KHL to make the big bucks. The sooner his entry level contract is over, the sooner they can do that.
Meanwhile, the team carried on with the on-ice training today with the following lines:
FORWARDS
Tatar - Weal - Gallagher Drouin - Suzuki - Armia Byron - Kotkaniemi - Lehkonen Hudon - Evans - Weise Dauphin - Domi - Belzile
DEFENSEMEN
Chiarot - Weber Olofsson - Petry Brook - Folin Juulsen
So, Domi is still in getting back in shape mode, Ouellet and Kulak are still absent and the pre group (Danault, Poehling, Mete, Fleury, Primeau) still cannot rejoin the main group. According to RDS' François Gagnon, there is a chance they might have been in contact with one of the players who tested positive and that is why they are currently excluded from the main group. At least, they didn't test positive eh? The sooner they can rejoin the team the better though, the clock is ticking and some real scrimmage would not go amiss. Furthermore, I'd much rather see Victor Mete play alongside Petry then Olofsson.
Today's media availabilities were Weise, Brook, Chiarot and Domi. To be honest, there wasn't much out of the ordinary said but I did like what Ben Chiarot had to say about Max Domi's presence at camp. In short, Big Ben, said that the risk Domi incurs by joining in is much greater than that of his teammates, that he's an important part of the team and appreciated in the room. When this was reported to Domi however, he refused to make a big deal out of it. HE said that everyone is taking risks because this is after all a global pandemic and as much as the journalists tried to make him talk about the implications of having type 1 diabetes, he stuck to his guns saying that he took a lot of information, took his time to make the decision and that now that he was here, he was here to stay, he was eager for things to get going and to play. The one time he said more though was when a journalist mentioned that a type 1 diabetes sufferer who is in shape and manages his blood sugar level well was less at risk than another type 1 sufferer. At that he said that there wasn't enough data available to support that statement but still, he feels safe being at camp thanks to all the efforts that are being made.
Max Domi s'adresse aux médias lors de la 8e journée du camp d'entraînement.
— Canadiens Montréal (@CanadiensMTL) July 21, 2020
Max Domi addresses the media on Day 8 of training camp.#GoHabsGo https://t.co/pgU5La8tFN
The team will be back on the ice tomorrow and hopefully, soon they'll be able to stage proper scrimmage games. A few teams have been broadcasting theirs online like the Penguins and the Flyers and while this isn't exactly proper hockey, it's still much better than nothing...