Canadiens News: The Kirby Dach injury is worse than we thought

The Montreal Canadiens took a hard loss to the Minnesota Wild on Tuesday night. Marc-Andre Fleury stood on his head and Minnesota put five goals on the board for the 5-2 victory. It’s continuing to be a tough week for the Habs as they weren’t even expected to be all that good in the first place.

Last week, in a win over the Chicago Blackhawks, they lost Kirby Dach to an injury. He did not return. We later found out that it would be a long-term thing but nobody really expected what it actually turned out to be.

Dach is going to miss the remainder of the 2023-24 season because of the fact that he tore his MCL and ACL in his right knee. That is tough to hear after 65 games let alone after three games. Dach’s season is over and a challenging developmental season for Montreal just got even harder.

Dach was the third overall pick by the Chicago Blackhawks in 2019. Eventually, in their rebuild, they removed Dach from that situation and sent him to Montreal. They were (at the time) much further along in their developmental process. This injury is very unfortunate.

The Montreal Canadiens are going to miss having Kirby Dach this year.

Dach was just starting to play very well. He ended last season with an injury too (which makes this one even more heartbreaking) but he had a good year. He had 14 goals and 24 assists for 38 points in 58 games. If he played in all 82, he certainly would have had over 40 points and possibly crept toward 50.

This year, the hope was that he’d eclipse 60 with ease and then maybe even start pushing the boundaries of All-Star-level scoring. He was taken third overall for a reason. Playing with good players like Coke Caufield or Nick Suzuki would have helped for sure. Having two assists in a handful of periods had him on the right pace to begin the year.

Now, that hope has vanished as he will spend the rest of the year rehabbing his knee issue. He has had a wild start to his career but that does not have to define it. He can bounce back from this if he puts in the work. We’ve seen players with less talent come back from worse situations before.

We know, based on how this injury usually works, Dach should be good to go by the start of the 2024-25 season. If he is, he really will be focused on staying healthy. Habs fans just have to hope that it doesn’t come at the expense of his game. Dach is a really nice kid who deserves the best. Hopefully, he comes back better than ever. We all feel for the kid.