It's no secret that the Habs are congested at the forward level. This surplus of forwards is probably the only thing that could keep Juraj Slafkovsky away from Montreal, if the young Slovakian were to have an ordinary training camp. However, as Marco D'Amico of <i>MTL Hockey Now</i> reports, the health of three forwards may well give their spot to Slafkovsky. Indeed, Paul Byron, Jonathan Drouin and Sean Monahan are questionable to start the season. It would therefore be surprising to see them in action during the preparatory games. <q>We're going to constantly have some gray areas (with players) and Paul is one of those gray areas as far as whether he's ready to play at the start of the season or not, Hughes said of a date for the return of some of his injured forwards. We expect Paul, whether it's day one or a week or two weeks later, that Byron will be able to play this season. - Kent Hughes</q> As for Sean Monahan and Jonathan Drouin, the Habs GM is approaching their return with the same approach: <q>When he had his hip surgery, it was supposed to be six or seven months and he came back after four months and I think he struggled with that by forcing the recovery and ending up making it a prolonged recovery, Hughes said when asked about Monahan's condition. I was very honest with him. We didn't acquire him to play on opening night. If it's a week later, it's two weeks later, that's fine. If it's not opening night, I feel like it's pretty close and I feel the same way about Jo (Drouin). - Kent Hughes</q> <div align='center'><blockquote class='twitter-tweet' data-lang='en'><a href='https://twitter.com/mndamico/status/1568709379137978380?t=hXImNt8q-DCfDNF6Q-JT-w&s=19'> </a></blockquote></div>