Florian Xhekaj, Engstrom Stay; Reinbacher Sent Down

The Montreal Canadiens announced that both forward Florian Xhekaj and defenseman Adam Engstrom have made the 23-man roster to start the season. 

Meanwhile, to the surprise of media and fans alike, the Canadiens sent defenseman David Reinbacher back to the Laval Rocket as one of the final cuts, ahead of the 5:00 pm ET roster deadline on Monday. 

Along with Reinbacher, the Montreal Canadiens have also assigned nine other players to the Rocket:

Owen Beck

Dillan Bentley

Laurent Dauphin

Jared Davidson

Jacob Fowler

Filip Mesar

Luke Mittelstadt

Owen Protz 

Tyler Thorpe

At 2:00 pm ET, the Montreal Canadiens had placed nine players on waivers for the purpose of sending them down to the AHL. These players will need to clear waivers before they get sent to the Rocket:

Alex Belzile

Brett Berard 

Kaapo Kahkonen 

Hunter McKown 

Sasha Pastujov 

Samuel Poulin 

Ethan Samson 

Maksymilian Szuber 

Reilly Walsh

Florian Xhekaj led all Canadiens players during the preseason in hits with 10 (not including the Kraft Hockeyville game due to no hitting stats).

Adam Engstrom led all Canadiens players in ice time during Saturday night’s split-squad games in Ottawa against the Senators with 23:54. He finished the night with two hits, had three shots, and was a +1 in the 4-3 loss. 

The Montreal Canadiens could still make more moves before 5:00 pm ET by making a trade or acquiring a player off waivers. However, they will not be able to put any other players on waivers before the deadline. 

The Canadiens will hold their first team practice of the regular season on Monday before heading to Toronto on Tuesday for their season opener against the Toronto Maple Leafs.

With their cuts on Sunday, the Montreal Canadiens’ current 23-man roster looks as follows:

Forwards (14):

Josh Anderson

Zach Bolduc

Cole Caufield

Kirby Dach

Phillip Danault

Ivan Demidov

Jake Evans

Oliver Kapanen

Chris Kreider

Alex Newhook

Juraj Slafkovsky

Nick Suzuki

Alexandre Texier

Florian Xhekaj

Defense (7):

Alexandre Carrier

Noah Dobson

Adam Engstrom 

Lane Hutson

Mike Matheson

Jayden Struble 

Arber Xhekaj

Goalies (2):

Jakub Dobes

Samuel Montembeault 

IR:

Defenseman Kaiden Guhle