A Hard Blow in Montreal: Chris Kreider Will Miss Six to Eight Weeks, and His Return to the Garden Will Have to Wait

The Montreal Canadiens have been one of the early surprises of the NHL season, and on Saturday they absorbed one of their hardest blows yet. The team announced that veteran forward Chris Kreider will miss six to eight weeks with a lower-body injury, NHL.com reported.

The news came on game day, hours before Montreal hosts the Colorado Avalanche on Saturday night. It also means the 35-year-old will not be in the lineup when the Canadiens visit his old home rink in New York on Monday.

Kreider was hurt Thursday in Montreal's 5-2 win over the Bruins in Boston. He went down at 6:27 of the third period after an open-ice collision in which Bruins forward Michael Eyssimont slid into his legs, CBC News reported. Kreider could not put any weight on his left leg as he left the ice and did not return.

On the timeline the team gave, he would be back in late December or early January, according to CBC. That covers a large stretch of the first half of the season, including the busy holiday schedule.

Kreider has three goals and six assists for nine points in 19 games this season, and the Canadiens have climbed to 12-3-4, TSN reported. Those are solid numbers for a veteran in a depth role, but they do not tell the whole story.

Yahoo Sports noted that Kreider had found real chemistry on a line with Josh Anderson and Jake Evans, and that coach Martin St. Louis now has to go back to the drawing board with his combinations.

A veteran like Kreider brings things to a young dressing room that never show up on the scoresheet. He has been through long playoff runs, big-market pressure and the grind of a full NHL season many times over. Younger players learn how to prepare, how to bounce back from a bad night and how to carry themselves when a building gets loud by watching someone who has done it for years. Montreal will miss that as much as it misses his net-front work.

Yahoo Sports described Kreider as the latest Canadien to land on the injury list, which makes the club's strong start look even more impressive. Losing bodies is part of every NHL season. How a team handles it usually decides whether a good November turns into a good spring.

Florian Xhekaj will re-enter the lineup Saturday against Colorado in Kreider's place, his first game since Nov. 3, according to NHL.com. Jakub Dobes is expected to start in goal, Yardbarker reported.

The injury also wipes out a date many fans had circled. Montreal plays at Madison Square Garden on Monday, where Kreider would have faced the New York Rangers, his former club, Gino Hard noted. Kreider spent the bulk of his career on Broadway and became one of the most familiar faces of that franchise for more than a decade. The return would have been an emotional night for him and for the fans who cheered him for so long. It will have to come another time.

For Montreal, the question now is depth, and so far this team has answered that question well. A 12-3-4 start does not happen because of one or two players. It happens when the whole roster buys in, and the next six to eight weeks will test whether that buy-in holds when a respected veteran is watching from the press box.

There is an old hockey truth that injuries reveal a team's character. The Canadiens have a chance to show theirs, starting Saturday night against Colorado and continuing Monday in New York. If the younger players step up the way Kreider has shown them, Montreal can keep its strong start rolling and welcome him back to a team still in the thick of the race.

For Kreider, the job now is patience: rest, rehab and a careful return. At 35, every season is precious, and a smart recovery matters more than a fast one.