Christian Dvorak is out the rest of the season for the Montreal Canadiens because of a torn pectoral muscle and will have surgery Friday.
The 27-year-old center has missed two games since he had 15:59 of ice time in a 4-1 loss at the Florida Panthers on Saturday. He has seven points (three goals, four assists) in 25 games this season.
Canadiens coach Martin St. Louis was asked Thursday what he will miss most with Dvorak out of the lineup.
“His left-handed face-offs," St. Louis said. "He’s a guy who plays on the penalty kill, he can play on the power play, he does a bit of everything. So I don’t think it’s going to be one player who will fill the role he plays, it’s other players.
"[Center Sean] Monahan will have to kill a few more penalties, someone will have to take his place on the second power play, Monahan will have to go on the ice more for left-handed face-offs when they’re important. (Dvorak) is a guy who does more than one thing so we’ll have to replace him collectively.”
Selected by the Arizona Coyotes in the second round (No. 58) of the 2014 NHL Draft, Dvorak has 214 points (91 goals, 123 assists) in 447 NHL games with the Coyotes and Canadiens and three points (two goals, one assist) in nine Stanley Cup Playoff games.
Dvorak had an NHL career-high 38 points (18 goals, 20 assists) in 70 games with Arizona in 2019-20.
Montreal (16-16-5), in sixth place in the Atlantic Division, hosts the Buffalo Sabres at Bell Centre on Thursday (7 p.m. ET; RDS, TSN2, MSG-B).
NHL.com independent correspondent Sean Farrell contributed to this report
