The biggest piece of news from this morning’s practice is that the Canadiens will have to go without the presence of Brendan Gallagher after taking a Shea Weber slap shot off the same hand he broke last season.
Medical update: B. Gallagher underwent surgery last night in Montreal. Fractured left hand. His recovery is expected to be minimum 8 weeks.
— Canadiens Montréal (@CanadiensMTL) January 6, 2017
The thin silver lining is that he apparently escaped injuring the same fingers as last year.
The fingers that Gallagher had broken last season were not affected when he had his hand broken in Dallas.
— Dan Robertson (@DRTSN690) January 6, 2017
He joins an ever growing list of injured players including David Desharnais, Greg Pateryn, and Andrew Shaw among others. This is definitely a blow, as Gallagher was looking like his old self, and the goals were surely soon to follow.
However, despite being down Gallagher and Paul Byron (who worked out off ice), there’s good news for the Habs as Alex Galchenyuk and Andrei Markov returned to the team for the first time since their respective injuries.
Galchenyuk et Markov sont sur la glace avec des chandails “sans contacts”. / Chucky and Marky are on the ice with a “no contact” jersey.
— Canadiens Montréal (@CanadiensMTL) January 6, 2017
They both sported non-contact jerseys, so there is still likely to be a while before they return to game action, but every little bit helps. Therrien did mention that Galchenyuk could be ready to return “as soon as next week.”
With Gallagher and Byron both out, the forward lines were as follows:
Trios du #CH:
Pacioretty-Danault-Radulov
Lehkonen-Plekanec-Andrig.
Carr-Mitchell-Flynn
Farnham-McCarron-Scherbak
Terry#Habs— Jonathan Bernier (@JBernierJDM) January 6, 2017
Bobby Farnham and Nikita Scherbak draw in alongside their fellow IceCap Michael McCarron, while Sven Andrighetto takes his place next to Plekanec and Lehkonen, which is sure to be an exciting line.
Despite Markov’s return, the defensive pairings remain the same:
Duos du #CH à l’entraînement:
Emelin-Weber
Beaulieu-Petry
Barberio-Johnston
(Markov)-Redmond#Habs— Jonathan Bernier (@JBernierJDM) January 6, 2017
