Canadiens provide handful of medical updates

The Montreal Canadiens have announced injury updates for four of their players.

Winger Joel Armia will miss practice after leaving Tuesday’s game because he wasn’t feeling well. He is day-to-day and could play against the Philadelphia Flyers Friday.

Center Kirby Dach has been out since February 16 with a non-COVID related illness. Through testing and evaluation, it was determined that the illness is related to a lower-body injury he sustained. He will not travel with the team to Philadelphia.

Defenseman Joel Edmundson’s rehab is progressing but there were not further updates from the team. He has been out of commission since January 26 when he sustained an upper-body injury against the Detroit Red Wings.

Defenseman Chris Wideman is out week to week-to-week with an upper-body injury. No further updates were provided regarding the nature of Wideman’s injury.

The rebuilding Canadiens have been hit with numerous injuries this season. Carey Price and Paul Byron haven’t played at all this year. Sean Monahan has been out since December 5. Long-time Hab Brendan Gallagher has been sidelined since January 3.

In addition to those losses, the Canadiens are also without Jake Evans, Juraj Slafkovsky, Cole Caufield, Kaiden Guhle and Arber Xhekaj. Their roster has been gutted this year and at this point they’re just trying to lug it out and hope for some lottery luck.

The Canadiens currently sit 26th in the NHL with a 24-29-4. That gives them the seventh-best odds of landing the cream of the 2022 draft crop, Connor Bedard. They have a 6.5% chance of getting the first pick if the lottery were held right now.

This coming offseason will be an important one for the Canadiens. They have an exciting core of Caufield, Nick Suzuki, Guhle, Xhekaj and Dach but they have a lot of work to do to fill up the rest of the roster with NHL talents.