Key Canadiens defenseman day-to-day with lower-body injury

The Montreal Canadiens have announced that defenseman Mike Matheson is out day-to-day with a lower-body injury. 

The 29-year-old suffered the injury during the club’s 4-3 shootout win over the Winnipeg Jets. Matheson has been on a tear to start the season, with two goals and four assists in his first eight games. Matheson dealt with several injuries last year in what was a shortened season for the Pointe-Claire, Quebec native. He dressed in just 48 games, registering eight goals and 26 assists while posting a +7.

The Canadiens are already missing David Savard with a broken left hand and can ill afford to lose Matheson for any length of time after a surprising 5-2-1 start to their season. The Canadiens were expected to be in a transition year but have impressed thus far winning a lot of close games.

The severity of Matheson’s injury is unknown, but early indicators are that his ailment isn’t serious. Matheson will travel with the Canadiens to Las Vegas for their upcoming road trip, which indicates that he will likely play in the next week in one of the three games on the trip. Arpon Basu of The Athletic has tweeted that the team is saying that Matheson’s injury is nothing serious.

Matheson missed much of the Canadiens training camp with an injury that seemed to linger for longer than expected. This was also the case for several of the injuries he dealt with last year, including the abdominal strain that occurred at a morning skate and eventually caused him to miss the first month of the season.

While Matheson’s injury frequency must be of concern, his play on the ice is not. Since a difficult final season with the Florida Panthers, Matheson has been extremely responsible and creative with the puck which has led to him posting solid offensive numbers in recent years. 

Should the Canadiens’ assessment be correct, Matheson will return later this week to attempt to continue his solid start to the season.