Montreal Canadiens: Tyler Toffoli Joins Lengthy Injury List

Montreal Canadiens forward Tyler Toffoli is one of the few bright spots on an otherwise dreary season.

The former Los Angeles Kings and Vancouver Canucks winger who signed a four year deal with the Canadiens just over a year ago is leading the team in scoring this season. He has 17 points in 26 games this season and was terrific last year with 28 goals and 44 points in 52 games.

Toffoli has been out of the lineup recently, and the news was much worse than anticipated.

While it was previously just announced he had an upper body injury, the team detailed today that Toffoli had surgery on his hand and will be out of the lineup for eight weeks. The winger now joins a lengthy injured list which includes Carey Price, Shea Weber, Joel Edmundson, Jeff Petry, Josh Anderson, Christian Dvorak, Brendan Gallagher and Paul Byron.

The Canadiens are already near the bottom of the standings and it won’t be any easier to win games without one of their few productive offensive players.

The timeline puts Toffoli out until around the start of the Olympic break. Obviously, in a season like the one the Canadiens are having, there is no need to rush Toffoli back into the lineup for a couple of games before a lengthy break. He is also not going to be on Team Canada at the tournament, so it is pretty much guaranteed we won’t be seeing Toffoli again until the Canadiens face the Ottawa Senators on February 26th.

That’s ten games before the trade deadline on March 21st. It will be interesting to see if Toffoli’s name crops up in trade rumours after he comes back as the Canadiens are surely going to be in selling mode heading into the deadline.

The Canadiens also announced Jake Evans will not play tonight but he is likely to be back much sooner than Toffoli.