Montreal Canadiens: Is That Actual Transparency on an Injury Report?

The Montreal Canadiens, like most NHL teams, have often been quite vague when it comes to reporting injuries.

Just take Carey Price for example. This isn’t even the first time he was supposed to be out “weeks” and had missed more than half a season. Back in 2015-16, his injury was downplayed at every turn but we didn’t see him play again after November.

This is the norm for NHL teams who don’t want to give up too much information on their own players.

It started with just the playoffs. When you are playing against the same team every night in a win-or-go-home series, you don’t to tell them “our first line centre has a bad left wrist and might need surgery but he’s going to try it out in Game 6.” Then the opponent will just target that players injury and knock them out of the game.

So, teams stating becoming more vague in the playoffs when it came to specific injuries.

Lately, it has devolved into basically every injury report just being: “Player x has an upper/lower body injury and will be out short/long term.”

It really isn’t the fans business exactly what injuries hockey players are dealing with, but when you watch a player block a shot with his foot and the team announces a lower body injury two days later, it is kind of ridiculous. Why not just say he injured his foot and will be out for a length of time.

Well, apparently the Montreal Canadiens do that now?

The team announced yesterday, via a series of tweets, that Jonathan Drouin has a right wrist injury and is out indefinitely. While the information given in that tweet is not good, the amount of information is quite refreshing.

The team also announced that Joel Edmundson is deadline with a lower back injury but remains out indefinitely. He hasn’t played yet this season as he continues to have setbacks as he tries to work slowly back into game shape.

The team did also work in a couple of “upper body injuries” into their news release as well. They said Christian Dvorak is out indefinitely with an upper body injury but clarified that it is not a concussion. He has been placed on injured reserve and will be out until after the All-Star break which is next weekend.

Mathieu Perreault was also said to have the classic upper body injury but the team did say he will be out 3-4 more weeks, which was a surprise. HIs injury has been shrouded in secrecy so at least we have a timeline.

Joel Armia and Cole Caufield returned to Montreal yesterday after completing their quarantine periods but they didn’t say whether they would be in the lineup tonight or not.

So, the team still worked in a couple of “upper body injuries” but their injury update with actual timelines and the mention of real body parts like wrist and lower back instead of upper body and lower body was a refreshing read.