UPDATE: Per The Athletic’s Arpon Basu, Weber’s x-rays came back negative. No facial fracture after taking a puck to the face. Claude Julien said Weber will travel with the team for their game on Tuesday against the Detroit Red Wings.
At first, it looked like Shea Weber just brushed off taking a hard, rubber puck to the chops off the stick of Mikael Granlund.
Sure, it looked like it hurt and yes, the Montreal Canadiens defenseman was hunched over on the bench with a nice gash on the side of his cheek. But he stayed in the game and carried on until the end of the first period.
The concern came when he didn’t emerge for the second, however. A few minutes turned to half the period and then the message from the Habs came: Shea Weber, done for the night with an undisclosed injury.
Not what the club nor its fans wanted to hear.
Here’s the video of the deflected shot to the face:
Weber missed most of the first two months of the season recovering from offseason surgery and hadn’t played an NHL game since Dec. 16, 2017 -- some 345 days on the shelf.
He has six goals and 10 assists in 26 games this season. Entering Monday, Weber was tied for fifth in average time on ice at 25:34.
Back in November, Canadiens defenseman Noah Juulsen took a puck to the face, twice, in a game against the Washington Capitals.
Juulsen was on the shelf for three weeks.
https://youtu.be/lPPtNrJt88Q?t=52
The injuries look similar, but the hope is Weber won’t miss that kind of time again, especially since he barely played in 2018.
Scott Billeck is a writer for Pro Hockey Talk on NBC Sports. Drop him a line at phtblog@nbcsports.com or follow him on Twitter @scottbilleck