Habs Invite 60 Players to Training Camp

With training camp set to get underway on Wednesday with medical and physical testing, the Habs announced on Tuesday that 60 players will take part in that camp.

While the list of players includes many on tryouts that are signed to minor-league deals, the only out-of-organization invite is goaltender Kevin Mandolese, whose tryout was reported last week.  The roster is as follows:

Forwards: Josh Anderson, Vincent Arseneau*, Owen Beck, Alex Belzile, Samuel Blais, Zachary Bolduc, Cole Caufield, Lucas Condotta, Kirby Dach, Laurent Dauphin*, Jared Davidson, Ivan Demidov, Will Dineen*, Joe Dunlap*, Mark Estapa*, Jake Evans, Sean Farrell, Brendan Gallagher, Egor Guriunov*, Oliver Kapanen, Riley Kidney, Patrik Laine, Filip Mesar, Israel Mianscum*, Alex Newhook, Vinzenz Rohrer, Joshua Roy, Xavier Simoneau*, Juraj Slafkovsky, Nick Suzuki, Tyler Thorpe, Luke Tuch, Joe Veleno, Florian Xhekaj

*-signed to AHL contract

Defence: Alexandre Carrier, Nathan Clurman, Marc Del Gaizo, Noah Dobson, Adam Engstrom, Kaiden Guhle, Lane Hutson, Josh Jacobs*, Darick Louis-Jean*, Charles Martin*, Mike Matheson, Ryan O’Rourke*, Tobie Paquette-Bisson*, Owen Protz, David Reinbacher, Jayden Struble, William Trudeau, Wyatte Wylie*, Arber Xhekaj

*-signed to AHL contract

Goalies: Jakub Dobes, Jacob Fowler, Benjamin Gaudreau*, Hunter Jones*, Kaapo Kahkonen, Kevin Mandolese^, Samuel Montembeault

*-signed to AHL contract
^-unaffiliated tryout

Out of the 60 players, around half are rather obvious choices to be cut at some point.  However, Laval’s training camp doesn’t typically get underway until October so this will be a chance for those players to get a kickstart on their training camp with a couple of weeks of conditioning workouts while a few of them will likely get a preseason game or two before cuts start to get made.  Those players will get a bit of NHL camp per diem money, a small way to give some of those lower-salaried players a bit of extra funds.

Meanwhile, Montreal’s six-game preseason schedule below:

Sept. 22: vs Penguins, 7 PM
Sept. 23: vs. Flyers, 7 PM
Sept. 25: vs. Maple Leafs, 7 PM
Sept. 27: at Maple Leafs, 7 PM
Sept. 30: at Senators (in Quebec City), 7 PM
Oct. 4: vs. Senators, 7 PM

This will be the last preseason schedule this long as in the new CBA which begins in 2026, the regular season schedule will expand to 84 games while preseason matches will be capped at four.