Montreal Canadiens forward Christian Dvorak is expected to be out until November as he continues to recover from knee surgery, general manager Kent Hughes said Wednesday.
Dvorak was injured during a game on March 7 and underwent season-ending surgery days later.
Hughes clarified Dvorak hasn't experienced a setback, rather all parties want to ensure he's completely healthy first.
"I think the surgeon wants to take this thing very cautiously and just make sure that he's 1,000 per cent and probably some of it comes from our direction in terms of saying, hey, we're not looking to rush people back here," Hughes said. "We don't want to go through the cycle that we went through again. If [Dvorak's] got to wait a game or two, or a week or two longer, to just ensure that he's ready to return permanently, we're going to do that.
"We don't want I think, psychologically speaking, having to go through that again where a guy returns and he's out and he's back. I think ... the psychological impact on everybody of 'here we go again' is going to be difficult, so we're going to take it conservatively, make sure that [Dvorak's] fully ready to come back."
The 27-year-old Dvorak recorded 10 goals and 18 assists in 64 games last season.
Montreal acquired Dvorak from the Arizona Coyotes in Sept. 2021. He has 207 points (88 goals and 119 assists) in 422 games over seven seasons with the Coyotes and Canadiens.
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