Montreal Canadiens reveal new information that may have saved Patrik Laine from season-ending surgery
The Montreal Canadiens appear to have caught a huge break, announcing today that Patrik Laine avoided a more serious injury thanks to an extra piece of protective equipment.
The Canadiens announced today that Laine will be out 2-3 months instead of the anticipated 5-6 months if not worse. In fact, many fans were anticipating that he would miss the entire season after video of the play circulated online. Luckily, that will not be the case.
At first, the injury looked to be as bad as it could be. We could see Laine's knee bend sideways at a dramatic angle that looked both incredibly painful and damaging. Seeing him down on the ice without moving for a long period of time only made our fears worse. When he was helped off the ice, his frustration was very apparent as he threw his glove and helmet down the tunnel.
Of course, Canadiens fans and players alike were devastated when Laine went down given his injury history. He certainly is one of the more unlucky players in the entire NHL. Even head coach Martin St. Louis showed some emotion when discussing Laine's injury.
Now we know how Laine got a little bit of good luck this time. Even though he will still miss 2-3 months of action, he was apparently wearing a knee brace on his left knee during the pre-season game against Toronto. This brace likely helped support his knee during the impact, limiting the damage to just a sprain when he very easily could have torn his ACL or MCL instead. Perhaps the forward will continue to wear braces like this in all his games moving forward to protect himself against future injuries.
Laine shared a post to social media today in response to the fans reaching out to him following the play. He thanked the fans for their support and reiterated that he would be back on the ice again for the Habs this year. The team shared his post via their own X account.
With any luck, Laine will be back on the ice before we know it. As it is though, he appears to have gotten lucky enough so perhaps we shouldn't ask too much of him. Should he return on the projected timeline, he could even help the team's efforts to rise up the standings, perhaps even pushing for a playoff spot. At this point, we will just have to wait and see what happens.
