Habs Injury News: Kirby Dach Out With Fractured Foot

Dach’s injury comes once again at the worst time possible in terms of his play, as he was playing some of his best hockey as a Hab over the last few weeks. Now that he’s out, all the momentum that he has gained from his play over the last few weeks will be lost when he gets back. Sure, the Habs had a really bad week, but he still looked good in transition and would have likely remained on a positive path once the Habs start getting out of their slump, but now they’ll be without his services for another month at the very least. When he returns, it’ll likely take time before he can get back to the form he has been playing in over the last few weeks.

The exact play in which Dach fractured his foot could be from a variety of shots that he blocked over the past two games, but it wouldn’t actually be surprising if he fractured his foot when he blocked that shot just before the Dallas Stars’ 2nd goal on Thursday night. With that being said, he probably thought he could play through the pain on Saturday, but it may have just been too much agony for him against the Bruins.

The Canadiens called up forward Joshua Roy to take Dach’s spot in the lineup, but given his past call-ups, it will be hard to replace the role that Dach filled in the lineup. The reality is, Roy doesn’t bring much footspeed and often lacks the work ethic needed to be an NHL producer. 

Nonetheless, Roy will probably be given a prime opportunity to prove that he belongs in the NHL over the next few weeks, much like Jared Davidson, who got the call-up to replace Alex Newhook in the lineup as of Friday. Davidson is a much different player than Roy, as he can play in a lot more situations. Whereas Roy is primarily suited to play an offensive role, but has yet to break out into the NHL. This season could be Roy’s true last chance to do so with the Canadiens, and this call-up is one that he will need to truly take advantage of.

The good news is that Roy has the skill to be a good middle-six winger, so if he can put everything together that he has shown at the AHL level. However, the positive is that for this year, Roy trained extra hard in the summer to be ready for the season. In the AHL, he still looks good with 4 goals and 7 points in 10 games, but that was never the issue. The point was always to be ready for the NHL. 

During his first call-up, Roy only played a single game against the Calgary Flames, where he played 7:58 and didn’t really stand out. With that being said, Roy didn’t have enough time to really show how much his hard work in the off-season paid off. This time around, he will surely get more than one game to prove himself.

Thanks to the Dach injury, the Habs may finally shake up the lines to put Zack Bolduc with Oliver Kapanen and Ivan Demidov, to finally see if they can form a strong offensive line to help the Habs’ top line of Juraj Slafkovsky-Nick Suzuki-Cole Caufield produce. The reason that it could work is that Bolduc is someone who needs a premier playmaker like Demidov to set him up to get off his wicked wrister at 5-on-5. At the end of the day, that line is the best thing that the Habs can do to get offence from the 2nd line.

The loss of Dach is a tough blow for the Habs, but they must find a way to replace him with what they have, no matter how difficult it will be.

Do you think Joshua Roy will finally be able to produce at the NHL level?