Canadiens Buying Time For Trade By Placing Dadonov On IR

The Montreal Canadiens were forced to put Evgeni Dadonov on injured reserve in order to get back down to 23 players on their active roster.

The imminent return of Montreal Canadiens defenceman Joel Edmundson necessitated a roster move by 5 p.m and we just got it as the Canadiens were able to use Dadonov’s week-long battle with a virus to put him on IR.

Due to Edmundson coming back from an injury, the Canadiens could use waivers under exceptional circumstances to get under the 23-man roster limit. Due to article 16.12 of the NHL’s CBA, the Canadiens could exceptionally waive a player today to get back under the 23-man roster limit. In normal circumstances, the Canadiens would have needed to do it yesterday, but this exceptional situation gave them the ability to wait to the last minute.

That being said, the Canadiens bought themselves more time to come up with a more permanent solution by using IR as Dadonov now comes off of the active roster just as Edmundson comes on.

Depending on when Dadonov was placed on IR, as the Canadiens have the ability to retroactively place him there as far back as Saturday October 29, Dadonov will have to spend a minimum of seven days off the roster. The Canadiens thus used Dadonov’s health as a quick bandaid for the time being, as they haven’t been able to find a more sustainable solution moving forward to fix their forward logjam, yet.

General manager Kent Hughes is still looking for a way to solve his logjam at forward, as waivers only mitigate the problem for the time being; but it doesn’t solve the problem. It will be interesting to see if some of the underperforming teams across the league might look to the Canadiens’ many excess forwards as cheap options to bolster their lineup.