The Montreal Canadiens announced that winger Joel Armia is sidelined for six to eight weeks with a knee injury. The team made the announcement via their twitter account. Earlier in the day, head coach Claude Julien indicated that Armia had undergone an MRI and the team was waiting on the results.

MEDICAL UPDATE

Joel Armia suffered a right knee injury on November 6 at NY Rangers. His recovery period is expected to be 6-8 weeks.

— Canadiens Montréal (@CanadiensMTL) November 9, 2018

Joel Armia Injured

Armia was tripped and made knee to knee contact with New York Rangers defensemen Brendan Smith. He tried to shake off the injury but ended up going down the tunnel a few minutes late and didn’t return to the game.

So far this season, Armia has scored three goals and four assists for seven points to go along with eight minutes in penalties. His possession numbers were 53.6 percent Corsi-for 0and a relative Corsi of +0.4.

Over his five-year NHL career, Armia has played for the Buffalo Sabres, Winnipeg Jets and Montreal Canadiens. He has 29 goals and 36 assists for 65 career points in 195 career games. He was originally drafted by the Buffalo Sabres in the first round, 16th overall in the 2011 NHL draft.

What This Means for the Future

Losing Armia would be a major blow to the Habs all Finnish line of Jesperi Kotkaniemi, Joel Armia and Artturi Lehkonen. That line has been one of Montreal’s best lines in the last few games. Armia has also seen some power-play time in recent games with Paul Byron out of the line-up. Armia has yet to score a goal on the man advantage in his career. With both Byron and Armia are unable to play on Thursday night, Kenny Agostino was called up from Laval.

The team could look to bring up Nikita Scherbak soon as well. He made the opening night roster but hasn’t appeared in a game for the Habs this season. He was sent down to Laval last week on a conditioning stint.

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