MONTREAL - A few months ago, Montreal Canadiens fans might not have had any trouble shrugging off the news journeyman forward Glen Metropolit had been lost for weeks with a shoulder injury.
The shrug is painful for both Habs fans and Metropolit now.
Metropolit tried to put a positive spin on the status of his shoulder injury Wednesday as his teammates prepped for their game against the Carolina Hurricanes at the Bell Centre and their push to secure a playoff spot.
The Canadiens went into the game in seventh place in the Eastern Conference, tied in points with the sixth-placed Philadelphia Flyers and Boston Bruins, who are in eighth, all with 82 points. The tie is broken by the team’s number of wins.
The Atlanta Thrashers were in ninth place with 80 points, but had played one more game than the Flyers, Canadiens and Bruins.
Metropolit suffered a tear in his shoulder on a hit by New Jersey Devils Rod Pelley Saturday and while he will miss the Habs’ remaining six regular-season games, he was figuratively shrugging off some reports he could be sidelined for up to two months.
“I don’t know where the 6-8 weeks came from. We’ve got a couple more tests to run and we’re doing what we can to get back as soon as possible,” said Metropolit.“I got that hit and my arm went pretty numb. It’s pretty painful.
“Right now it looks like the regular season and we’ll try and aim at the playoffs.”
Metropolit, who worked himself up from hardscrabble beginnings in Toronto to become an NHL regular, was having a career year for the Canadiens.
He had 16 goals , including a remarkable 10 on the power play to lead the Canadiens with the man advantage.
The 35-year-old’s previous best was 12 goals in 57 games with the Atlanta Thrashers in 2006-07 and he was on his way to eclipsing his single-season best points total. He had 13 assists this season to go with those 16 goals to threaten the 33 points he had with the Boston Bruins two years ago.
He won’t get a chance to do better than that, though he’s holding out hope some aggressive therapy will put him in a position to return to the team for the post-season.
“It’s kind of sad, but I’ll be back,” he said. “It was a freaky thing, but hopefully I can get back and score some goals in the playoffs.”
The Canadiens will have to find a way to replace Metropolit’s presence on the power play as they enter their final stretch of games which saw them play Carolina Wednesday, travel to Philly for a huge game against the Flyers Friday and be at home to the Buffalo Sabres Saturday night.
They wrap up their regular season with games on Long Island against the Islanders next Tuesday, in Carolina against the Hurricanes next Thursday and finish the regular season a week from Saturday at home against the Toronto Maple Leafs.
“Today I was sitting there in the room looking at it and I thought to myself, ‘we need four (wins).’ That earns us our own (spot),” said Canadiens leading goalscorer Mike Cammalleri. “You take the number four and you say what’s the best way for us to get to four? We can’t worry about four (Wednesday) night. We can only worry about one game tonight.
"We can worry about playing well and getting a win and then the number shrinks. It doesn’t do us any good to sit here and think about four. It does us good to think about beating Carolina.
“At this point, it’s easy not to look ahead. They put the itineraries for Philadelphia down in the room and nobody’s picked one up yet, so there you go.”
chris.stevenson@sunmedia.ca
