Montreal Canadiens: Mike Matheson Late Scratch A Preventative Measure

The Montreal Canadiens were set to face the Ottawa Senators tonight in the second game of their exhibition schedule.

They released their lineup earlier today, but then made a last second adjustment. Mike Matheson was supposed to play on the top pairing with David Savard, but he was removed from the lineup shortly before puck drop and Kaiden Guhle took his place.

With so many injuries last season, and many that seemingly came out of nowhere and lasted longer than anyone anticipated, including an early season injury that kept Matheson out of the lineup for a long period of time, any surprise scratch is worrisome.

The team did not immediately release any details about the scratch, just mentioning that Guhle was replacing Matheson, but after the first period of play they made an announcement. The team released stated that the Matheson scratch was a precautionary measure and that head coach Martin St. Louis will provide more details following the game.

This is good news. It would seem the team is taking a cautious approach and probably could have played him but are being extra careful not to make something worse in a game that really does not matter in the grand scheme of things.

However, it obviously is something that Matheson is dealing with and the team is already starting to see injuries adding up early on. Chris Wideman is out right now with a back injury and is listed as out indefinitely and Christian Dvorak’s knee injury from last season has carried over and will keep him out of the lineup until at least November.

Hopefully Matheson’s status is not nearly as bad as those, and it sounds like it isn’t, but we will have to wait and see until after the game to see what the team says about Matheson. It sounds like it isn’t serious, but we can’t blame any Habs fans who hold their breath when injury updates are coming.

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