Chris Kreider didn't finish the Canadiens' win in Boston on Thursday night, and Montreal still hasn't said what happened to him.
The Canadiens beat the Bruins 5-2, with Jacob Fowler making 30 saves and Jake Evans scoring the game-winner. The result was the easy part. Who is actually healthy in Montreal is a much murkier question.
Kreider fell awkwardly late in the third period and couldn't come back, finishing with just 9:08 of ice time. He flew home to Montreal with the team overnight and is listed as day-to-day with a leg injury.
Maxime Truman reports that Nick Suzuki and Michael Matheson are also not at 100 percent. Suzuki played 19:55 without a point, while Matheson logged 21:11 and added an assist. According to Truman, both are playing through discomfort.
The frustrating part is that nobody ever said what hurt them in the first place, or which problems are still there. Suzuki has dressed for 13 of the first 19 games, and Matheson for only nine.
On the ice, the Canadiens are absorbing all of it. They're 12-3-4, fifth in the NHL, with an 8-0-2 record over their last 10.
Why the Canadiens' injury updates keep raising eyebrows
Take whatever comes out on Kreider with a grain of salt. The recent track record doesn't earn much trust.
Oliver Kapanen was considered day-to-day for a month. He has one goal and one assist in 12 games, and questions about Oliver Kapanen's future with the Canadiens are already being asked.
The two cases that bother fans most are Ivan Demidov and Samuel Montembeault. Demidov has played just two games, and earlier this month he was seen training apart from the group with a therapeutic boot on his right foot. A return seemed to be taking shape at Brossard, yet he's now on injured reserve with an ankle injury, expected out until at least Nov. 14.
Montembeault is also on injured reserve with a lower-body injury and the same Nov. 14 timeline, and he hasn't played a game this season. That's the backdrop to the calls Kent Hughes has fielded about Samuel Montembeault.
Winning covers a lot, and it's covering a lot right now. But a team that gives vague answers about four or five players at once gets less benefit of the doubt each time, and the Canadiens have used up plenty already.
The Avalanche visit Montreal tonight, and that's when we find out whether Kreider is in the lineup.
This article was written with the help of artificial intelligence, based on public reports and official sources.
What's your read on Chris Kreider's status after his fall in Boston?
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