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Sunday, January 21, 2001
Savage out eight weeks with broken thumb
Associated Press
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| Savage |
MONTREAL -- The injuries continue to mount for the
struggling Montreal Canadiens, who lost leading scorer Brian
Savage for eight weeks after he suffered a broken right thumb in
Saturday's 2-2 tie with the New York Rangers.
Savage scored his 19th goal just 20 seconds into the game but
was injured later in the first period. He was checked into the
end boards by Rangers defenseman Rich Pilon and used his thumb
to brace himself.
"We lose another player. It's a bad injury, but we just can't
go out there and give up," Canadiens coach Michel Therrien said.
"We lost a key player and that is a huge loss."
Through Thursday, Montreal led the NHL with 278 man-games lost
to injury. The Canadiens already were without goaltender Jeff
Hackett (hand), center Trevor Linden (toe), left wings Martin
Rucinsky (knee), Benoit Brunet (knee), Gino Odjick (wrist) and
Andrei Bashkirov (knee), right wing Dainius Zubrus (concussion)
and defensemen Craig Rivet (shoulder) and Francis Bouillon
(ankle).
"I don't have words to express how bad I feel seeing another one
of our players going on the injury list," said captain Saku
Koivu, who missed 28 games earlier this season with a knee
injury. "They just keep coming one after another. We have to
be able to overcome this."
Savage, who missed 44 games last season with a broken vertebra,
leads the Canadiens with 19 goals and 33 points in 48 games.
Before Koivu went down, he had five goals and five assists in
October.
Montreal is last in the Northeast Division with a 15-25-5-3
record and 38 points. It trails Carolina and Boston by nine
points for the final Eastern Conference playoff spot.
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