Montreal Canadiens’ David Savard to miss remainder of the season with knee injury

There is yet another injury in a season to forget for the Montreal Canadiens.

The Canadiens announced that defenseman David Savard will miss the remainder of the season while dealing with a knee injury.

While “remainder of the season” usually means it’s a significant injury with a long-term recovery involved, with just a couple weeks left of the regular season, it could very well be nothing too major and the Canadiens are taking the precautions in a lost season to rest Savard and let him come back healthy next season.

Savard hasn’t played since Tuesday’s game against the Philadelphia Flyers where he suffered the injury. He had been day-to-day while they figured out the specifics of the injury, but have now confirmed that he will miss the final five games of the season for the Canadiens.

Savard will finish the season with 3 goals, 17 assists, and 20 points in 62 games, which is three points more than he got in his first season with the Canadiens in 2021-22, also coming in 62 games. It’s the first time since 2018-19 that he’s hit the 20-point mark.

Savard was a fourth-round pick of the Columbus Blue Jackets in 2009, where he spent 10 seasons of his career before he was dealt to the Tampa Bay Lightning in 2021 at the trade deadline and went on to win a Stanley Cup with the Bolts. He is in the second year of a four-year contract with a $3.5 million cap hit, one he signed with the Canadiens in free agency after his Cup-winning playoff run.

Savard joins a lengthy list of Habs regulars currently slated to miss the remainder of the season, including Juraj Slafkovsky, Cole Caufield, Arber Xhekaj, Christian Dvorak, Kaiden Guhle, Josh Anderson, and Sean Monahan. However, with a 30-41-6 record and no chance of a playoff spot, most of them are likely precautionary to get them ready for next season.