Canadiens' Mike Hoffman could miss four weeks with lower-body injury

Ducharme said Thursday that Hoffman was hurt before coming to Montreal. The 31-year-old signed a three-year, $13.5 million deal with the Canadiens in July.

If Hoffman is out four weeks, he'll miss Montreal's first five regular-season games. The Canadiens play their sixth game of the season on Oct. 23 against the Detroit Red Wings. 

Hoffman spent the 2020-21 season with the St. Louis Blues, tallying 17 goals and 19 assists in 52 games. Before that, he spent two seasons with the Florida Panthers after spending his first seven years in the NHL with the Ottawa Senators. 

The 31-year-old has tallied 395 points (189 goals, 206 assists) in 545 career regular-season games. He has scored more than 20 goals six times in his career. 

Montreal is also being cautious with goaltender Carey Price, who is recovering from July knee surgery. Ducharme said he isn't sure if Price will start the regular season, per The Athletic.

"We'd like to have him for the first game for sure, but do we want to start the season with these two players and have these injuries linger for a long time?" Ducharme said. "Sometimes it's worth it to miss one, two or three games so that when they do play, they are at 100 percent and the injury is behind them.

That's how we will manage the situation with those two guys and hopefully we don't have any other situations like this."