Jack Todd: Are the Canadiens cursed?

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It’s the wild card for each workforce, each season, each rebuild, each profession.

It’s why pitchers leap over the first-base line when heading again to the dugout. It’s why Patrick Roy talked to his goalposts, Wayne Gretzky at all times missed his first shot in warm-ups vast proper — and Sidney Crosby received’t name his mom on sport days.

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It’s luck.

If athletes are superstitious, it’s as a result of they know they want luck on their aspect. If Canadiens followers are superstitious, it’s as a result of they aren’t satisfied that the Discussion board ghosts made the brief journey to the Bell Centre again in 1996.

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You possibly can hardly blame them. After what has been a intestine punch of every week for the Canadiens and their followers, everybody from the seventh-floor places of work on the Bell Centre to the denizens of the seediest dive is questioning what occurred to the as soon as legendary Habs luck.

When the information broke that rising star Kirby Dach had suffered torn anterior cruciate and medial collateral ligaments in his proper knee when he was run into the Blackhawks bench by one-time Habs bust Jarred Tinordi, it appeared the whole metropolis felt his ache.

Dach’s harm got here within the fourth interval of the season. It didn’t appear to be all that critical, though you possibly can inform Dach had been rocked as he returned to the bench. He sat for a bit, stood and leaned towards the boards for a time, testing it, then left for the dressing room and didn’t return.

Affirmation of the Dach catastrophe didn’t break till Tuesday. His workforce, using a wave of early-season optimism after a powerful efficiency in an time beyond regulation loss in Toronto and a win over Connor Bedard and the Chicago Blackhawks, appeared gut-punched by the information in a brutal loss at residence to the Minnesota Wild.

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Across the Canadiens, when it rains you had finest seize a seat on the ark as a result of it’s going to pour. This 12 months’s first-round draft decide, David Reinbacher, additionally suffered a knee harm when he fell awkwardly into the boards after a success throughout a Swiss league sport towards Fribourg-Gottéron.

Left-winger Emil Heineman, in the meantime, received a foul luck trophy whereas taking part in on the highest line in Laval when he ran right into a referee and suffered an upper-body harm.

Lastly, defenceman Kaiden Guhle, like Dach one other rising star, left the sport towards the Wild and didn’t return. When preliminary stories had Guhle out six to eight weeks with a damaged wrist, followers reacted with the generally hilarious cynicism of whole despair:

“Are the Habs cursed?”

“What voodoo curse is occurring?”

“Properly, that was a enjoyable 2 video games, see y’all subsequent 12 months.”

“I’ve by no means seen such a curse in sports activities, that is absurd.”

When a fan requested who made a take care of the satan with out ensuring the Canadiens truly received the Cup remaining, somebody replied: “Judging by his eyes, (Jeff) Petry.”

It’s a measure of how unhealthy issues have been when the information that Guhle is day-to-day appears like a significant uptick within the membership’s fortunes. With or with out Guhle, nonetheless, any likelihood the Canadiens could be within the playoff combine in all probability went down with Dach.

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Have the Discussion board ghosts deserted the Canadiens? Is karma amassing its debt for all of the issues that broke the Canadiens approach throughout that extraordinary run to the Stanley Cup in 2021? Or was it the Logan Mailloux draft that angered the hockey gods?

Personally, I’m not superstitious. OK, I refuse to stroll below ladders, fly on Friday the thirteenth, stroll or drive the place a black cat has crossed the trail or fail to knock wooden if I point out that I’ve been unusually wholesome of late. (Knock, knock.)

However in our extra rational moments, everyone knows that is unlikely to proceed. Someplace alongside the best way, the immutable regulation of averages will even issues out. However after main the league with 751 man video games misplaced to harm, the wholesale modifications to the medical employees have but to make an affect.

Each time I point out my admiration for the best way Jeff Gorton and Kent Hughes have gone about their rebuild, I wish to add, “however they’re going to wish some luck.” Luck with draft picks, luck with trades (to date, so good) and above all, luck in avoiding accidents.

An harm like Dach’s impacts a membership in so some ways. You are concerned in regards to the affect on Juraj Slafkovsky, the 2022 first general decide who had regarded so good taking part in with Dach. The stories from Slafkovsky’s first sport with Alex Newhook as his centreman weren’t good. However it might be foolish to make any judgments based mostly on a sport when the whole workforce was discombobulated and Slafkovsky was handed two minor penalties for being too sturdy for his personal good.

Largely, nonetheless, that is about Kirby Dach. He’s been via a lot already and he’s such a drive on the ice. Now he faces a 12 months of rehab hell when he’s going to wish all of the bodily and psychological toughness he can muster.

For what it’s value, the younger man has huge help from the beleaguered hockey followers of this metropolis.

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