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“When someone from the family is missing, it’s not easy for the dressing room”

 Emily Smith
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“When someone from the family is missing, it’s not easy for the dressing room”
Credit: Capture d'écran / Screenshot

Patrik Laine’s injury is hurting the Canadiens right now.

The fact that it happened in a warm-up game before the start of the season makes it all the more difficult for many. And the way he got hurt, it’s making fans furious.

But in some ways, it’s going too far.

At the Habs, there’s this feeling that the club is back to square one. It’s tough on the ice, but it’s also tough on the morale of the guys, who know that the situation is serious.

After all, as Elliotte Friedman said in his most recent podcast (32 Thoughts), the Habs hope it won’t be too serious, but they’re preparing for the worst in the case of Laine’s injury.

As I mentioned this morning, it won’t be easy for the rest of the team to hold down the fort mentally.

If you listen again to episode #3 of the “Rebuilding” series on Crave, you’ll see that this is the episode that deals in particular with Kirby Dach’s injury, suffered at the start of the season last year.

And clearly, there are connections to be made between Dach’s situation last year and Laine’s this year. In both cases, these are top-6 players who go down quickly.

Take the following comments, keep in mind that they relate to Dach… but I invite you to make connections to Laine.

One thing we’ve noticed since I arrived is that the group is resilient. We’ve been through this before. Last year, we lost Cole, Arber and Slafkovsky.

When someone from the family is missing, it’s not easy for the dressing room. – Kent Hughes

The GM added afterwards that the players in uniform stepped up, but that it’s still hard to deal with the reality of an injury like Kirby Dach’s.

And what did the players have to say?

Cole Caufield, at this time last year, found it hard to see that in the last two years, the Habs didn’t have a full long-term roster. He said he wanted to see what a healthy Habs could do.

Nick Suzuki, on the other hand, spoke of a hard blow at the start of the season.

Far be it from me to put words in their mouths, but I’m sure all those words apply to Laine this season. After all, the situations are similar.

The only thing that’s changed? Last year, we weren’t talking about the “P-word” and this season, the Habs want to be #InTheMix.


Overtime

– Preview of the 2024-2025 season in Montreal. [NYT]

– Great Tkachuk.

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