Canadiens in danger of losing momentum in rebuild with centre line decimated

MONTREAL — It was to be the biggest key to progress for the Canadiens this season, a weapon at their disposal to overcome a weakness and help them keep growing out the roots firmly planted in Year 1 of their rebuild.

But the increased depth they started with, which coach Martin St. Louis vaunted all throughout training camp as a mitigating factor to the scarcity of star talent up front, was officially muzzled on Thursday morning with the announcement Christian Dvorak was scheduled for season-ending surgery to repair a torn pectoral muscle.

Yes, that Christian Dvorak. The 27-year-old with just three goals and seven points in 25 games. The guy who rarely brings you out of your seat.

But that Christian Dvorak is also the guy who’s often leaned on to do the dirty work in the shadows for the Canadiens; to be a pressure release for centre Nick Suzuki; to take and win a faceoff at either end of the ice in both ordinary and pivotal moments; and to regularly help on secondary units of both the penalty kill and power play.

You may not miss him all that much, but the Canadiens are going to, as evidenced in their 6-1 shellacking at the hands of the downtrodden Buffalo Sabres on Thursday night.

Don’t get us wrong; we’re not suggesting Dvorak’s absence alone will fully stunt the growth of this team. We’re not even pinning this performance against the Sabres, which left St. Louis as displeased as we’ve seen him since he took over as Canadiens coach in February of 2022, on it. And hey, the team appeared just fine in its first game without Dvorak (a hard-fought loss to the Tampa Bay Lightning to close 2023) and just as well in its second (a big win over a powerhouse Dallas Stars team this past Tuesday.

But that gun St. Louis was holding in September officially became a banana with Dvorak joining Kirby Dach and Alex Newhook on the long-term injury list.

The team’s centre depth took a huge hit when Dach was lost for the season just five periods in, after he suffered a torn MCL and ACL in a freak collision with Chicago’s Jared Tinordi, and it took another one when Newhook got tangled up with the net and ended up with a high-ankle sprain in Game 23.

Maybe Dvorak’s loss would be more digestible if Newhook were coming back soon, but he was seen limping his way out of the Bell Centre on crutches Thursday, and he isn’t scheduled to be skating in Montreal’s lineup until mid-to-late February.

After Newhook went down, St. Louis repeated what he said in the aftermath of Dach’s injury.

“The league doesn’t care if we have injuries, the league keeps going,” was his refrain.

With Dvorak now lost, it feels like the league will move right on without the Canadiens, who fell further back in the race for one of the final playoff spots in the Eastern Conference with Thursday’s loss to Buffalo.

“We have options. We have four centres,” St. Louis said before it.

But his new reality is that he has one official NHL all-star in Suzuki. The coach has no choice but to use him even more than the 21:07 he was averaging prior to Thursday’s game, and three others who have no choice but to be seated in higher chairs than the ones they were originally slated to occupy.

Sean Monahan, who played more than half his 719 games in this league as a top-two centre, is most equipped to do that.

But even if Jake Evans has played well in the 14 games he’s skated in above the team’s fourth line, he has still only accounted for a goal and three assists in an elevated offensive role. And even if Mitchell Stephens has been decent since arriving with the team 15 games ago, the AHLer who last played in the NHL in the 2021-22 season hasn’t been a player St. Louis has wanted to deploy for more than 11:22 in any given contest.

In the last three without Dvorak, the coach had 11 forwards dressed and still wouldn’t use him more.

But Suzuki played two minutes more than his season average Thursday and is likely going to climb up from 11^th among forwards in the league to right near the top in the category as the games roll along.

Heck, he double-shifted a lot at five-on-five in this one and also took on double duty on the power play — playing on his own unit, and also in Dvorak’s spot on the second unit for two of the three minutes the latest injured centre would’ve been used for.

Suzuki, who had three of the 32 shots Devon Levi pushed aside to earn his first win in his hometown, said he certainly doesn’t mind the added responsibility.

But he also acknowledged the team’s options have been reduced in all situations.

“Any time you lose a guy, it’s tough,” added Monahan.

Losing three versatile ones up the middle is crippling.

It’s not only neutralizing St. Louis’ biggest weapon, it’s assuredly halting the momentum the Canadiens had built to this point of the season and threatening to hinder their growth.