Montreal Canadiens’ Christian Dvorak makes season debut vs. Blues

Montreal Canadiens center Christian Dvorak will be returning to the lineup on Saturday against the St. Louis Blues.

Dvorak, 27, had been out of the lineup since March of the 2022-23 season after suffering a knee injury and requiring surgery to repair it. His knee hadn’t fully recovered by the time the 2023-24 season started, so he needed to stay out of the lineup for the first month of the season.

Dvorak had played 64 games with the Canadiens before the injury last season, with 10 goals, 28 assists, and 38 points on the year. It was the lowest point total of his career with at least 60 games played, and is the lowest in terms of point-per-game pace since his rookie season in 2016-17.

Dvorak was a former second-round pick of the Arizona Coyotes in the 2014 NHL Draft, and spent five season with them before he was dealt to the Canadiens for a first and second-round pick in 2021, and is now entering his third season with the Habs. He’s in the fifth year of a six-year contract with a $4.45 million cap hit, one he signed as an extension with the Coyotes in 2018 with a year left on his entry-level contract.

Based on Daily Faceoff’s projected lineup for the Canadiens on Saturday, Dvorak appears to be slotting into a third line role with Juraj Slafkovsky and Josh Anderson. This line was the most common combination Dvorak played with last season, although the ice time the trio spent together still didn’t even make up 7% of Dvorak’s total ice time in 2022-23. The combo had a 5v5 expected goal share of 43.41% and were outscored 5-2 in 73:55 of ice time last year.

The Canadiens will hope that Dvorak’s addition will help snap their two-game losing streak against the Blues on Saturday, with the game starting at 7 p.m. EST. They currently sit in fourth in the Atlantic division and in the first Wild Card spot with a 5-3-2 record.