The Montreal Canadiens have been battling injuries all season long. Their affiliate, the Laval Rocket, are being bitten as well and Jesperi Kotkaniemi is the latest victim.
The Montreal Canadiens have dealt with injuries all season long. Many teams go through spurts where they have to find a way to plug holes here and there but it doesn’t usually happen where the team is perfectly healthy for six weeks and then nowhere near healthy again for the rest of their schedule.
The Habs started the season so well before the injuries hit. They were 11-5-3 but then Jonathan Drouin and Paul Byron were knocked out of the lineup on the same night. They both missed a considerable amount of time and Drouin is injured again after returning for a handful of games.
They were joined at times by a handful of other players as the Habs injured list grew longer than Pinocchio’s nose. Joel Armia, Brendan Gallagher, Shea Weber, Tomas Tatar and Victor Mete were among the key players to miss significant time.
Another player that was injured earlier in the year just got some bad news about a more recent injury. Jesperi Kotkaniemi was body slammed to the ice by Nikita Zadorov earlier this season and missed time with a concussion. He was struggling at the NHL level and was demoted to the Laval Rocket at the start of last month.
The 19 year old was injured once again, when he was hit into the boards in front of the bench. He left the game in the first period and did not return. It was later reported that the Finnish center suffered a spleen injury and would be out indefinitely. Tonight, it was revealed he would be out for the remainder of the season.
Canadiens announce Jesperi Kotkaniemi will miss the remainder of the season with a spleen injury
— Eric Engels (@EricEngels) March 11, 2020
This is obviously bad news for Kotkaniemi, especially considering how well he was playing. Since being sent down to the Rocket, Kotkaniemi had scored 13 points in 13 games. After struggling to find offence in the NHL for 36 games, the third overall pick in 2018 was finally finding his confidence before this injury occurred.
The only good news is that it was quickly reported that Kotkaniemi will not require surgery for this injury. It is a pretty rare injury for an NHL player, but Peter Forsberg required surgery to remove his spleen in 2001. The injury happened just after the Colorado Avalanche won their second round series and though Forsberg was out the rest of the playoffs, he did return by the start of the next training camp.
If Kotkaniemi does not require surgery, then his injury can not be as bad as Forsberg’s. That would suggest even though he is out for the rest of the year, he should be back at 100% by the start of next season.