Arber Xhekaj Out For Season, Christian Dvorak Returning Tonight
The Montreal Canadiens have announced that defenseman Arber Xhekaj is out for the rest of the season and will undergo shoulder surgery tomorrow. The 23-year-old hasn’t played in almost a week and will have his left shoulder operated on; the Canadiens believe he will be ready for training camp next season.
Xhekaj will finish his second NHL season with 44 games played and has tallied three goals and seven assists to go along with a +6 plus/minus. The native of Hamilton, Ontario saw his average ice time increase by about 40 seconds a game, and made some improvements to his defensive game, but still struggled with turnovers. The Canadiens did increase his powerplay ice time to roughly one minute per game, but he couldn’t capitalize on it and recorded no powerplay points this season.
In other Canadiens news, center Christian Dvorak will return to the lineup tonight for the first time since December 30th. The 28-year-old had surgery on January 5th to repair a torn pectoral muscle and will dress against the Philadelphia Flyers. It’s been a tough stretch for Dvorak as injuries and inconsistency have limited his impact this season as he has just three goals and four assists in 25 games. Dvorak was never an analytics darling but his underlying numbers have fallen off since joining the Canadiens three seasons ago.
Atlantic Notes: Dvorak, Walman, Greenway
TSN is reporting that the Montreal Canadiens have upgraded the status of center Christian Dvorak to day-to-day, meaning that the 28-year-old could play before the end of the season. The Canadiens announced on January 4th that the Palos, Illinois native would miss the rest of the season with a torn pectoral muscle, but he was a full participant in the Canadiens’ practice today and wore a regular jersey.
Dvorak was originally acquired by Montreal back in September of 2021 from the Arizona Coyotes. The trade hasn’t worked out as the Canadiens had hoped after sending a 2022 first-round draft pick and a 2024 2nd round draft pick to Arizona in the exchange. Dvorak has battled inconsistency and injury during his tenure in Montreal, particularly this season where he has missed nearly four months of action and has just three goals and four assists in 25 games.
In other Atlantic Division notes:
- Helene St. James of The Detroit Free Press is reporting that Detroit Red Wings defenseman Jake Walman will draw back into the lineup after being sidelined with a lower-body injury. The 28-year-old missed the last six games with the ailment and will draw in against the Tampa Bay Lightning in place of veteran Olli Maatta. Walman has dressed in 61 games this season and has averaged nearly 20 minutes of ice time per game, registering 12 goals and nine assists to go along with 150 blocked shots and 106 shots on goal.
- Buffalo Sabres forward Jordan Greenway is reportedly being evaluated for an upper-body injury according to Lance Lysowski of The Buffalo News. Lysowski adds that the Sabres are hopeful that Greenway will be day-to-day with the ailment and can get back into game action soon. The Sabres sit seven points back of the Philadelphia Flyers for the final playoff spot in the Eastern Conference with seven games remaining and are all but mathematically eliminated at this point in the season. In his first full season with the Sabres Greenway has contributed nine goals and 15 assists in 62 games to go along with 131 hits.
Christian Dvorak Out For Season With Torn Pectoral Muscle
Canadiens forward Christian Dvorak will miss the remainder of the 2023-24 season with a torn pectoral muscle, the team announced Thursday. The injury will require surgery, which Dvorak will undergo tomorrow.
It’s another long-term injury for a Canadiens team that’s no stranger to having players out of the lineup for long stretches of the season. After leading the league in man-games lost last year, Montreal lost young top-six forward Kirby Dach to a season-ending knee injury just two games into the campaign. They’ve also been without the services of defenseman Chris Wideman for the whole season up to this point with a back injury, and Jordan Harris, Rafaël Harvey-Pinard, Alex Newhook, and David Savard have all missed significant chunks of the campaign.
The Habs’ 16-16-5 record and sixth-place standing in the Atlantic Division is better than some expected, but Dvorak hasn’t been a major factor in their return to relevancy. The 27-year-old hasn’t been the bona fide second-line center the Canadiens expected to get when they acquired him from the Coyotes days before the 2021-22 season began. Dating back to his acquisition, he’s played in 145 games and notched 24 goals for the Canadiens, adding 44 assists for 68 points. That works out to a rather underwhelming points-per-game pace of 0.47.
Dvorak began this season on long-term injured reserve while he was still recovering from knee surgery that prematurely ended his 2022-23 campaign last March. After missing ten games, Dvorak returned to the lineup in early November, scoring just three times in the 25 games since. While he won nearly 60% of his draws during his stint in the lineup this year, a career-high, Dvorak’s ice time also dipped below the 16-minute average mark for the first time in five years.
Unfortunately, the writing is on the wall for his potential as an everyday top-six forward in the NHL. He last played on December 30, recording a -1 rating in a 4-1 loss to the Panthers. He missed the following two games with what the team termed an upper-body injury.
In Dvorak’s absence, the Canadiens have dressed 11 forwards and seven defensemen, though don’t expect that to continue long-term. The Canadiens will need to recall a forward from AHL Laval to fill his spot in the top nine, or just wait for the returns of Harvey-Pinard and Tanner Pearson from their respective lower-body and upper-body injuries, which are both expected before the end of the month.
If they do look to Laval for help on offense in the short term, there are a handful of young candidates who could use a two- or three-week trial. 22-year-old Swedish winger Emil Heineman could get another bump to the NHL roster after being recalled for two weeks last month, playing his first two NHL games in the process. An injury cost him a solid chunk of the early portion of the season in Laval, although he does have two goals and six points in ten games there. 2021 fifth-round pick Joshua Roy remains tied for the team lead in goals with ten through 30 games, although the team seems content to keep the 20-year-old in the minors all season to adapt to the pro game despite his strong rookie showing on the scoresheet.
Even Dvorak’s overall two-way performance in his abbreviated 2023-24 showing was cause for concern. He spent most of his time in the lineup centering Cole Caufield and Juraj Slafkovsky on the team’s top line, and while his aforementioned faceoff skills were strong, the trio’s success at controlling play was not. Out of four Montreal forward lines with more than 100 minutes together this season, the Caufield-Dvorak-Slakovsky line’s expected goal share of 44.3% ranks dead last, per MoneyPuck. When Caufield and Slafkovsky have been centered by Canadiens captain Nick Suzuki this season, meanwhile, that trio has posted an expected goals share of 60.2% – quite a notable swing for swapping out just one player.
Dvorak has not yet been returned to long-term injured reserve, but expect him to end up on IR or LTIR in the near future if the Canadiens need roster and/or salary cap space. He remains under contract through the 2024-25 season at a cap hit of $4.45MM and carries an eight-team no-trade list that kicked in at the beginning of this season, per CapFriendly.
Injury Notes: Mayfield, Dvorak, Oettinger
It appears as if the Islanders will be welcoming back a key part of their back end tonight against Pittsburgh. The team announced (Twitter link) that Scott Mayfield has been activated from injured reserve. The 31-year-old has missed close to three weeks with an upper-body injury. Before that, he was off to a bit of a quieter start to his season with just four assists in 20 games while his playing time was down to 19:13 per game, his lowest since the 2018-19 campaign. Mayfield was, however, blocking nearly three shots a night, the best rate of his career. With both Adam Pelech and Ryan Pulock still injured, getting Mayfield back will be a nice boost to their back end.
Other injury news from around the NHL:
- Canadiens center Christian Dvorak is out indefinitely with an upper-body injury, relays Sportsnet’s Eric Engels (Twitter link). The 27-year-old is having a tough year offensively with just three goals and four assists through his first 25 games. With Montreal only carrying 12 forwards on its roster – partially a byproduct of carrying three goalies – and being on the road, they will have to dress seven blueliners for their matchup against Tampa Bay tonight.
- Dallas goaltender Jake Oettinger has been skating for four or five days now but a return to the lineup does not appear to be imminent. Head coach Peter DeBoer told Stars radio analyst Bruce LeVine (Twitter link) that the netminder is “probably further away than he is closer” as it relates to a possible return. The 25-year-old has missed the last couple of weeks with a lower-body injury after getting off to a rough start to his year with a save percentage of just .901 in his first 23 starts.
Canadiens To Activate Christian Dvorak Off LTIR
The Canadiens will welcome back center Christian Dvorak to their lineup tonight as the team announced (Twitter link) that he will make his season debut tonight, meaning that they will activate him off LTIR.
The 27-year-old was acquired back in 2021 to replace Jesperi Kotkaniemi whose offer sheet with Carolina went unmatched; Montreal flipped the first-round pick they acquired from Kotkaniemi as part of the trade package that went to Arizona. However, Dvorak hasn’t quite been able to lock down a full-time spot in Montreal’s top six since then.
Last season, Dvorak had 10 goals and 18 assists in 64 games before suffering a season-ending knee injury in March and undergoing surgery thereafter. The recovery took a bit longer than normal, resulting in the Canadiens starting him on LTIR. In the end, he’ll miss just the minimum number of games.
With Dvorak returning, Alex Newhook is expected to shift back to the wing. Newhook had been moved down the middle when Kirby Dach suffered his season-ending knee injury last month with the team being thin on center options but now Dvorak can slide into that role.
Montreal will need to create a roster spot to activate Dvorak. That can either be done by assigning defenseman Gustav Lindstrom to AHL Laval or by placing Rafael Harvey-Pinard on IR with the winger already being ruled out for tonight’s game. With the Canadiens having Carey Price on LTIR as well, they won’t face any challenges on the salary cap front with Dvorak’s activation.
Injury Notes: Dvorak, Mayfield, Penguins
Montreal Canadiens forward Christian Dvorak has so far missed the entirety of his team’s young season, though his absence could be quickly coming to an end. The Canadiens announced today that Dvorak “wore a standard practice jersey during the on-ice session” of today’s practice. It can be inferred from this that a return to game action for Dvorak is on the horizon.
Dvorak’s return would come at an important time for the Canadiens, who are reeling from the season-long loss of second-line center Kirby Dach. Dvorak isn’t Dach, but he has scored at a 42-point pace as a Canadien and offers genuine value at the faceoff dot. There’s a possibility Dvorak takes the second-line center job Dach vacated, shifting Alex Newhook back to the wing. It’s possible Dvorak ends up on the third line with Brendan Gallagher in a move that might land Sean Monahan with Newhook and Juraj Slafkovský, the latter a player Monahan showed genuine chemistry with last season.
Some other notes from across the NHL:
- New York Islanders defenseman Scott Mayfield will miss tonight’s game due to his lower-body injury, according to head coach Lane Lambert. (as relayed by Newsday’s Andrew Gross) Mayfield did skate this morning, something Lambert called a “first step” toward a return to full game action. The Islanders have gotten off to a strong 2-0-0 start, but maintaining that momentum could be more difficult without Mayfield, who is one of the Islanders’ more important defensemen. Mayfield ranked second on the team in time on ice per game last season, skating in 21:01 per night including a team-leading 2:41 logged short-handed.
- According to Pittsburgh Penguins team reporter Michelle Crechiolo, defenseman Kris Letang and forward Noel Acciari were both back on the ice for this morning’s practice. The pair had missed yesterday’s practice due to injury, and there was some uncertainty over how long those ailments would keep the players out of head coach Mike Sullivan‘s lineup. Thankfully for the Penguins, though, it appears both Acciari and Letang won’t have to face extended absences due to those injuries.
Montreal Canadiens’ Christian Dvorak Will Miss First Month Of Season
Montreal Canadiens general manager Kent Hughes confirmed to reporters, including TVA’s Renaud Lavoie, today that center Christian Dvorak will not make his season debut until at least November. At a minimum, he will miss the first nine games of 2023-24 after undergoing knee surgery in mid-March.
Hughes said last week that Dvorak, 27, was not yet cleared to play and needed to have an additional consultation with his surgeon. He declined to give a timeline at that moment, but the team now has additional clarity on the status of his recovery. He is behind schedule, as the team initially expected Dvorak to be ready for the start of 2023-24 when he went under the knife over six months ago.
The Palos, Illinois, native has two seasons under his belt as a Hab after coming over from the Arizona Coyotes via trade during the 2021 offseason. Since then, he’s occupied the team’s second-line center role behind Nick Suzuki when healthy – a key caveat given he’s only played in 120 out of 164 possible games in Montreal. Even when in the lineup last season, he struggled heavily, posting ten goals and 18 assists for 28 points in 64 games. That works out to 0.44 points per game, his lowest scoring rate in a full season since putting up 0.42 points per game in his rookie campaign, 2016-17.
All that means Dvorak is slated for a diminished role this season when he does reach full health. Unless the team moves him to the wing, he could very well end up as Montreal’s fourth-line center or even occasionally sitting in the press box. Behind Suzuki, Kirby Dach and Sean Monahan are currently projected to center the second and third lines. They both produced at a higher rate and averaged more ice time than Dvorak in 2022-23. Dvorak has played some left-wing at the NHL level in the past, though, and he could still find himself in a top-nine role if names like Rafael Harvey-Pinard and Juraj Slafkovsky haven’t done enough to demonstrate they belong on the team’s top three lines through the first month of the season.
A silver lining here for Montreal is some potential increased salary cap flexibility. If they deem Dvorak is set to miss a little bit at the beginning of November as well, that would translate to him being out of the lineup for at least ten games and 24 days. That makes him eligible for long-term injured reserve at the beginning of the season, and combined with de facto retired netminder Carey Price‘s $10.5MM cap hit, Dvorak’s $4.45MM cap hit could add more options for Hughes to manage Montreal’s books out of the gate for the most efficient use of LTIR relief.
Christian Dvorak Not Yet Cleared To Play
Montreal Canadiens general manager Kent Hughes has said that Christian Dvorak is not yet cleared to play and will need to meet with his surgeon one more time. Dvorak underwent surgery on his knee in March and was expected to be fully ready for the start of the 2023-24 season. Whether that will be the case or not seems to be up in the air now.
Dvorak joined eight other Habs on the injured reserve when he went down in March, speaking to the plague of injuries that Montreal experienced last season. In the 64 games he did appear in last year, Dvorak recorded 10 goals and 28 points, both career-lows when accounting for seasons where he played in 25 or more games.
This includes the 2021-22 season, his first year in Montreal, where he tallied 11 goals and 33 points in 56 games. That season was also dampened by injuries, with a lower-body injury holding him out for a month mid-season and an upper-body injury keeping him out for roughly two more in the spring.
Dvorak has two seasons left on his deal carrying a $4.45MM cap hit. These last two seasons also carry a modified no-trade clause that will allow Dvorak to submit an eight-team no-trade list should Montreal want to move him.
Dvorak, now 27, is in an interesting spot relative to the rebuilding Montreal Canadiens. He has yet to appear in a full 82 games and hasn’t played more than 64 since 2019-20. With a modified no-trade clause now in effect, how the Canadiens move forward with the cost-controlled Dvorak should be an interesting glimpse into what their plans for the next few years may be.
Free Agency Notes: Gostisbehere, Quick, No-Movement Clauses
As the defending Eastern Conference Champions start the 2023-24 NHL season, they will reportedly be without defensemen Aaron Ekblad and Brandon Montour. Both will be recovering from separate surgeries, and both are expected to be out for about a month after the season kicks off. Needing another defenseman aside from Gustav Forsling to manage the offensive load on the back end, David Pagnotta of The Fourth Period reports the team has an interest in unrestricted free agent, Shayne Gostisbehere.
A top-pairing of Gostisbehere and Forsling shouldn’t be expected to replicate the output of Ekblad and Montour, but those two would be serviceable for the first month of the season, and would even represent a superb top-four once Ekblad and Montour make their return. If the Panthers and Gostisbehere do come to an agreement, it will be interesting to see the term handed out, as the team currently doesn’t have any defenseman signed beyond 2024-25.
It wasn’t so long ago that Gostisbehere was considered a salary dump, after being traded along with a second-round pick in 2022 and a seventh-round pick in 2022, to the Arizona Coyotes for nothing but future considerations. After landing in the desert, Gostisbehere had an offensive resurgence of sorts, scoring 24 goals and 58 assists in 134 games with the Coyotes. At last year’s trade deadline, Gostisbehere was moved to the Carolina Hurricanes for a third-round pick in 2026. In a combined total of 38 games in Carolina, Gostisbehere scored three goals and ten assists split between the regular season and the 2023 Stanley Cup playoffs.
Other notes:
- Once the market opens up on Saturday, it is expected that the New York Rangers will find their veteran backup goaltender rather quickly. Kevin Weekes of ESPN reports that Jonathan Quick will land with the Rangers shortly after the market opens. This season, New York employed Jaroslav Halak as their main backup, who posted a record of 10-9-5, earning a .903 SV% and a 2.72 GAA. It’s expected that Igor Shesterkin will continue to shoulder much of the load in net next season, but the Rangers have reportedly coveted an upgrade to their backup netminder.
- Frank Seravalli of the DailyFaceoff reports the modified no-trade clauses, as well as the full no-movement clauses that are kicking in tomorrow. William Nylander (Toronto), Jakob Chychrun (Ottawa), Brandon Carlo (Boston), and Christian Dvorak (Montreal) will all have modified no-trade clauses kicking in. Auston Matthews (Toronto), Mitch Marner (Toronto), and J.T. Miller (Vancouver) will trigger the full no-movement clauses in their deals. Lastly, Travis Sanheim (Philadelphia) and MacKenzie Weegar (Calgary) will receive full no-trade clauses.
Snapshots: Granlund, Wheeler, Canadiens
Taylor Haase of DKPittsburghSports is reporting that the Pittsburgh Penguins are not going to buyout Mikael Granlund before the 5pm buyout window later today. Granlund has had his name thrown around for weeks as a player that was likely to bought out, but it appears he will remain with the Penguins barring a trade, or a buyout in the second buyout window should one open for Pittsburgh.
Granlund was acquired on trade deadline day by previous Penguins general manager Ron Hextall and did not fit in well with the club. After posting 36 points in 58 games with the Nashville Predators, Granlund was traded to Pittsburgh for a second-round pick and put up just a goal and four assists in 21 games as the Penguins failed to qualify for the playoffs. If he does remain with the Penguins, it’ll be interesting to see how head coach Mike Sullivan deploys the 31-year-old as he was not a fit in the Penguins bottom-6 and the recently acquired Reilly Smith is expected to take their vacant left-wing spot on the second line.
Some more snapshots from around the league:
- Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet tweeted that recent buyout recipient Blake Wheeler would prefer to play for an Eastern Conference team to have a new experience and less travel. The news comes from Wheeler’s agent Matt Keator and it makes sense given Wheeler’s age and his family considerations. The former Winnipeg Jets captain is a free agent for the first time and should have several teams to consider given that is coming off a season in which he posted 16 goals and 39 assists in 72 games.
- Eric Engels of Sportsnet is reporting that he expects the Montreal Canadiens to be quiet in free agency as the team has a lot of players that they would like to move to open roster spots for their younger prospects. While Engels jokes about Canadiens’ general manager Kent Hughes putting his phone on silent, he does concede that the Canadiens could add a player if they fit into both the short-term and long-term parts of their rebuild plan. He mentions Mike Hoffman, Joel Edmundson, and Christian Dvorak as players Montreal would like to move on from and given that all three are veterans on expensive cap hits it does seem unlikely for the Canadiens to acquire more of that through free agency.