The Montreal Canadiens announced after Tuesday night’s loss that Artturi Lehkonen will be out indefinitely sending Claude Julien back to the drawing board.
The Montreal Canadiens injury bug claims another victim. To think we may have gotten rid of it after what Carey Price told media Tuesday afternoon. Artturi Lehkonen missed the Columbus game because of a lower-body injury. However, it looks he’ll be out long-term.
We learned after the game that this injury will be taking Lehkonen out of the lineup indefinitely. Claude Julien revealed that the 22-year-old has been playing with this for a while, but it got to the point where it was impossible for him to keep it up. You hear that and think back to Price, and how he said he initially injured himself during warm-up of that Minnesota game and the sirens go off.
Considering where we’re at now, it obviously would’ve been better for Lehkonen to rest it, but there’s nothing that can be done to change that. The ‘indefinitely’ tag is interesting because it can mean a lot of things. There’s a possibility that whatever is ailing him may get to the point where surgery is the only option, and if that happens, we’re talking weeks to months until fans see him again.
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For now, the sophomore will be out of the lineup. It’s a tough loss for the Montreal Canadiens as Lehkonen has been one of the team’s hardest forecheckers. Additionally, he’s looked good playing with Jonathan Drouin and Alex Galchenyuk on that top line even though he only has a single goal this season.
Paul Byron filled in for the Finnish native, and that may be what the Habs continue to do moving forward. Hopefully, the flu that kept Torrey Mitchell off the ice on Tuesday won’t happen again.
One Other Option
Montreal will have a free spot on their roster if they put Lehkonen on injured reserve. They could call up a forward from the Laval Rocket for more offensive help. Daniel Carr is at over a point per game and might be a good addition to the bottom nine. Not only can he score, but he is a strong forechecker which again is something the team is losing with Lehkonen’s injury.
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The only con is whether he’ll be able to duplicate his production with the Habs. He’s had his shot playing with the Montreal Canadiens in the past and has 18 points in 56 games to show for it. You can use the same argument for Chris Terry who has the same amount of points as Carr but has never been able to make it work in the NHL.
Carr is younger though and has more upside than Terry though. If Montreal wanted to explore that avenue, he would be the person to call.
It’ll be interesting to see how the team responds from this. The old cliche’ is that when one of your best players misses time, the other 22 need to step up. Montreal has more than enough reasons to step their game up, but hopefully, this helps give them a push.
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How will the Habs respond to Lehkonen’s injury? Would you call someone up? Let us know your thoughts down below.