Laine, Xhekaj, Struble, Guentzel, Nosek

The Montreal Canadiens have already been busy today with their long-term injured reserve, adding forward Rafael Harvey-Pinard earlier today. They have added another with PuckPedia reporting the team has added forward Patrik Laine to the LTIR opening up $8.7MM in cap space.

PuckPedia also confirmed that defensemen Arber Xhekaj and Jayden Struble’s reassignments to the AHL yesterday were merely a paper transaction with both being recalled to the opening night roster. These moves mean the Canadiens will open the season with $6.625MM in cap space and an LTIR pool of $9.717MM without putting goaltender Carey Price’s $10.5MM salary on LTIR.

Despite the callup, Struble will not be in the lineup for the Canadiens’ regular season opener tomorrow night. The organization announced he is day-to-day with an upper-body injury. Even when healthy Struble will have difficulty playing as consistently as last season with Montreal carrying Mike Matheson, Lane Hutson, and Xhekaj on the left side of their defense.

Other Atlantic notes:

• Some were speculating in Tampa Bay that new winger Jake Guentzel wouldn’t start the season on time after missing some of the team’s practice on Sunday and all of the team’s practice yesterday. Jon Cooper, head coach of the Lightning, downplayed that speculation earlier sharing that the team expects Guentzel back at practice on Thursday and there’s no doubt in his mind that he will be in their regular season opener on Friday. There are high expectations for Guentzel coming into this season after scoring 30 goals and 77 points in 67 games last year between the Pittsburgh Penguins and Carolina Hurricanes while also signing a brand new seven-year, $63MM contract in Tampa.
• The Florida Panthers will be without some forward depth at the bottom of their lineup for the next few weeks. Senior digital content manager for the Florida Panthers, Jameson Olive, reported forward Tomas Nosek is still out week-to-week with an upper-body injury and confirmed he would not return by next week. Nosek signed a one-year, $775K contract with the Panthers this offseason and is largely expected to be the 12th or 13th forward for the team in most games.