Alex Galchenyuk and David Desharnais will miss 6-8 weeks due to knee injuries

The Canadiens announced today that both Alex Galchenyuk and David Desharnais will miss 6-8 weeks of action with knee injuries.

The Canadiens will surely miss both players, but the biggest blow has to be the loss of Galchenyuk, who is their most productive skater.

Galchenyuk currently leads the team in scoring with 9 goals and 14 assists. With Desharnais being his defacto replacement on the first line, the Canadiens will now need to look for unconventional options to jump start their offence.

Tomas Plekanec, coming off of a two-point game will likely be asked to take on a bigger role, and it wouldn’t be surprising to see either Andrew Shaw or Phillip Danault (or even Torrey Mitchell) get an increase in responsibility.

The Habs called up Sven Andrighetto which likely means an existing winger will play centre. They also sent down Charles Hudon who continues to recover from a cracked sternum.

Desharnais has played better since being a healthy scratch, and the team will need efforts from players like Danault, Paul Byron and Daniel Carr more than ever with the two centres going down to injury.