New year, same old battered and bruised Montreal Canadiens. Christian Dvorak will miss the remainder of the season with a torn pectoral muscle, the Canadiens announced Thursday. He will have surgery to repair the injury on Friday. Dvorak last played on December 30th versus the Florida Panthers.
Dvorak had seven points, three goals and four assists in 25 games this season. He missed the first ten games of the season due to a knee injury he sustained last season that saw him sit out for the rest of the year. These are back-to-back years with a season-ending injury for Dvorak.
This is Dvorak’s third year with the Canadiens after being acquired in the 2021 off-season from Arizona. Then GM Marc Bergevin traded a 2022 First-Round Pick (Carolina’s from the Kotkaniemi offer sheet) and a 2024 second-round pick to acquire Dvorak, a trade that looked suspect at the time and has only gotten worse with age. The Coyotes used that first-rounder to trade up and select Conor Geekie, while the Sharks used the pick to select Filip Bystedt.
Obviously you hate to see anyone get hurt and you feel for Christian Dvorak who's dealt with quite a few injuries just in his time in Montreal.
— Ryan Praught (@RyanPraught) January 4, 2024
But this is a trade that just keeps getting worse for Montreal. The Canadiens don't have their 2024 2nd Rounder because of that trade.
The injury should allow the Canadiens to put Dvorak on long-term injured reserve (LTIR) and create an additional $4.45 million in cap space for the season. This would give the Canadiens more flexibility at the trade deadline and possibly allow them to take on a bad contract to sweeten the compensation in a trade or add a talented player if they wanted to.
Dvorak still has one more year left on his contract after this season at $4.45 million. I would consider it unlikely at this time he is re-signed when his contract is up. I also would rule out the possibility of a trade at this point, as I would consider his trade value at an all-time low.
As for the Canadiens, this is more of the same for them, as they are once again on pace to lead the league in man-games lost, which would be the third consecutive year. Even after changing medical staffs, the injury bug has stuck around. Dvorak is the second Canadiens this year to sustain a season-ending injury after
The good news for the Canadiens? After leaving Tuesday’s contest versus Dallas with what looked like a nasty lower-body injury, Josh Anderson was on the ice for Thursday’s morning skate. He’ll play in the Canadiens game versus Buffalo tonight.