HabsWorld.net -- 

Adam Brooks’ time with the Habs has turned out to be short-lived as the Canadiens announced on Tuesday that he has been placed on waivers with a non-roster designation.

The 25-year-old was claimed off waivers from Toronto just before the start of the season in an effort to bring in some more centre depth.  However, the coaching staff rarely saw fit to use him as he suited up in just four of Montreal’s 17 games so far and he had a lone assist to his name (which came on Sunday in Boston).

It’s quite unlikely that he’ll make it through unclaimed as Toronto would likely want to bring him back for depth reasons and they have the roster spot and cap space to do so.  If they’re the only team to place a claim, they’d be able to send him to the minors.  If they claim him back and someone else ahead of them in the standings also puts a claim in, then he’d have to stay on their NHL roster.

The waivers/non-roster designation is a technicality.  Montreal had been over the roster limit with the promotion of Cayden Primeau over the weekend; they used a 48-hour emergency recall to make that work.  While Mike Hoffman was placed on IR, Jonathan Drouin is coming off there and suiting up tonight against the Rangers so that’s a wash.  Jake Allen could return as soon as Saturday and putting him on IR would have made him unavailable as that would have been the seventh mandatory day on IR.  As a result, Brooks has lost his roster spot a little earlier than anticipated as Allen will remain on the active roster and Brooks is transferred to non-roster status to get back to 23 players.