Canadiens defenseman Alexandre Carrier will miss two to four weeks with an upper-body injury, the team announced Tuesday. Montreal recalled Adam Engstrom from AHL Laval yesterday to replenish their blue-line depth with Carrier sidelined.
In all likelihood, Carrier’s regular season is over. The Habs’ last game is on April 14, two weeks to the day from today’s announcement. With a playoff berth all but locked up, there’s no need to rush him back for any regular-season action in the hope that he can be ready for Game 1 of the first round. If he’s out closer to four weeks, though, he may not be an option until the elimination-game stage – or even the early second round, if the Canadiens make it there without him.
Carrier logged a full game’s worth of action in his last appearance against the Hurricanes on Sunday, skating 19:05 of ice time with a +1 rating. There was no apparent injury that hobbled him during the game, nor did he ever head to the room.
The 29-year-old has spent the year either as Montreal’s second or third-pairing right-shot option. Outside of their top pairing of Mike Matheson and Noah Dobson, their defense combos have been in a blender all year long.
It’s the penalty kill where the Habs will feel Carrier’s absence the most. A good chunk of his time has come shorthanded, where he forms half of the top unit’s blue line with Matheson and has averaged over three minutes per game this season. The results haven’t been great, though. The Habs allow 10.6 goals per 60 minutes when Carrier is on the ice shorthanded, the highest figure among their four regular penalty killers.
On the whole, Carrier has put up a 7-15–22 scoring line with a +2 rating in 77 outings. That’s right around the offense he produced for the majority of last season after the Canadiens swapped Justin Barron to the Predators for him in December. He’s settling in around that 25-point pace for a career average, and he hasn’t varied from it too much over the past three years.
The Habs are carrying seven healthy defensemen with Engstrom’s recall, but, due to forwards Josh Anderson, Kirby Dach, and Alexandre Texier being unavailable, dressed Arber Xhekaj as a winger in Sunday’s win over the Hurricanes. If Anderson and Texier, who are both day-to-day, still can’t go tonight against the Lightning, Xhekaj will likely suit up on the fourth line again, while the left-shot Engstrom enters the lineup on his off side to replace Carrier.