Recovery period for 25-year-old forward injured during a summer scrimmage is expected to be four months.
The Canadiens’ injury problems continue — and the 2024-25 NHL season is still more than two months away from starting.
The Canadiens announced Friday that forward Rafaël Harvey-Pinard had surgery on Thursday to repair a broken leg and that the recovery period is expected to be four months. Harvey-Pinard suffered the injury during a summer scrimmage.
The Canadiens will open the season on Oct. 9 when the Toronto Maple Leafs will visit the Bell Centre.
Harvey-Pinard was limited to 45 games last season because of injuries, with two goals and eight assists. The previous season, he had 14-6-20 totals in 34 games with the Canadiens after getting called up from the AHL’s Laval Rocket.
Last year, forward Kirby Dach suffered a season-ending knee injury during the second game of the season. Nick Suzuki, Cole Caufield, Juraj Slafkovsky, Mike Matheson and Jake Evans were the only Canadiens to play in all 82 games last season. The previous season, Suzuki was the only Canadien to play in all 82 games.
Suzuki has never missed a game since joining the Canadiens. The Canadiens captain ranks third in the NHL for consecutive games played by active players with 373, trailing only the Carolina Hurricanes’ Brent Burns with 843 and the Dallas Stars’ Ryan Suter with 453.
Harvey-Pinard, 25, is heading into the final season of his two-year, US$2.2-million contract with a salary-cap hit of US$1.1 million. The Canadiens selected Harvey-Pinard in the seventh round (201st overall) of the 2019 NHL Draft.