The Montreal Canadiens were already a little slim at center, and now they’ll be without Andrew Shaw for at least this weekend.
The Habs ruled him out of tonight’s game against the San Jose Sharks and Saturday’s contest vs. the Washington Capitals because of a concussion. The team noted that Shaw’s issues really started to surface on Thursday afternoon.
Judging by their lines heading into Friday’s game, it looks like Montreal is mostly loading up with a strong first line:
Max Pacioretty - Tomas Plekanec - Alexander Radulov
Artturi Lehkonen - Phillip Danault - Daniel Carr
Paul Byron - Torrey Mitchell - Brendan Gallagher
Sven Andrighetto - Brian Flynn - Michael McCarron
With Gallagher struggling a bit so far in 2016-17, that really does seem like a concentration of the Canadiens’ best available assets.
If nothing else, Montreal probably hopes to get Shaw back in a week. They start a seven-game road trip (and play nine of 10 on the road) starting on Dec. 23. Even with a gap between those stretches thanks to the New Year, that could be a real challenge, even with Shaw in the mix.
Concussions can be a tricky thing to deal with, however, so we’ll need to wait and see.