Habs fans are having a traumatic week.
The ordeal began in the first minute of the Canadiens/Maple Leafs game Saturday night in Toronto when David Reinbacher was hit into the boards, twisted his left knee, and left the game. On Tuesday, the team announced that Reinbacher had had surgery to his left knee that morning and that his rehabilitation period was going to be five to six months.
This is an absolute disaster for the young man… and his team. The Austrian defenceman was picked fifth overall in the 2023 draft and this injury will clearly hurt his development schedule big time, especially since last season with Kloten in Switzerland was also pretty disastrous because the team was so dysfunctional.
But things got much worse for Habs supporters Saturday when Patrik Laine also went down after a nasty knee-on-knee play by Toronto defenceman Cédric Paré. Laine was traded to Montreal from the Columbus Blue Jackets this summer and there was mega buzz from fans given that Laine is one of the league’s elite scorers — when he’s on his game.
His knee bent badly and most fans and pundits were thinking the Finnish star might well be gone for much of the season. So when the team announced late Tuesday afternoon that it was “only” a sprain to his left knee, that he wouldn’t require surgery and that he would be out for two to three months, fans were relieved, which gives you a good idea of how anxious they were about Laine’s health.
By the time the Ottawa Senators’ Ridly Greig took a gratuitous shot at Kirby Dach’s head in the first period of the game at the Bell Centre Tuesday, it was like you could feel the breath going out of the entire Habs Nation when Dach left the ice to go to the room.
After three straight years of an absurd amount of injuries to Canadiens players, we were all thinking: ‘What the puck is going on with this team?!?’
Then Dach later got into a fight with Greig, soundly beating him in the bout, and again I think most of us were watching the fight in fear, wondering if Dach might get injured. This is the same Dach who went down with a knee injury in the second game last season and missed an entire year of play.
In short, the puck hasn’t even dropped for the opening face-off of the first regular-season game — that would be Wednesday Oct. 9 — but already there’s been more drama than I think any Habs would’ve liked to have to live through.
“It’s devastating, it was horrible,” said fan Nick Nerny, in a conversation about the Laine injury outside the Bell Centre before the Tuesday night game versus the Sens. “It took the wind out of your sails when you were watching the game and that happened. It was not fun to watch. It sucks. I was looking forward to watching him score some goals for us, big on the power play. I’m glad it’s only two or three months, but I thought it was going to be all season. I thought it was going to be Dach 2.0. I remember watching the game and (thinking) I don’t even want to watch the end of it. But we have some other lights on the team at least.”
Patrick Cousineau was also disappointed when Laine got hurt.
“Obviously everyone was really excited because we knew what he could potentially bring to the table,” said Cousineau. “We basically got him for next to nothing. The risk factor for his acquisition was really low. So that added a bit to the hype. So we’ll have to wait to see what he can bring. I’m still happy he’s part of the team. We’ll just have to wait to see some concrete games. If you lose a potential, I won’t say 50, but a potential 30 goals per season, that’s not nothing. But you can’t stop and hold everything for one player. You still need to build and there’s a lot of players who’re young and have to develop. It’s a shame that we lost him but at the same time, life goes on, right?”
Karine Tremblay, who was also on her way to the game Tuesday, said she and others were thinking ‘Ça sent la Coupe’ when Laine arrived in town, and so of course she’s bummed that he’s out for a few months. But what she really didn’t like was what happened after the knee-on-knee, when Habs enforcer Arber Xhekaj jumped Paré and began pummelling him. The Sheriff was fined $3,385 by the league for his actions, the maximum fine allowable under the collective bargaining agreement.
“What happened after was a really a drag, this is not what sports are supposed to be about,” said Tremblay. “What I don’t like is that this divides people. People start saying: ‘Did he do it on purpose?’ That’s not the image I have of hockey. I think it tarnishes the image of the sport.”
Brendan Kelly’s book on the Canadiens, Le CH et son peuple, is being released Oct. 9.