A podcast interview on Wednesday, November 4, turned the Ivan Demidov story upside down. His agent, Dan Milstein, said the Canadiens winger has a fractured ankle that he suffered in the preseason, that he played two regular-season games on it, and that he is probably still a few more weeks from returning. Until then the team had only ever said “lower-body injury.” On Thursday night, after the win over Utah, general manager Kent Hughes answered, and he also explained a new rule for how the Canadiens will talk about injuries.
How the Story Unfolded
Here is the timeline, from the official record and from what has been reported since.
| Date | What happened |
|---|---|
| Monday, September 21 | Preseason game against Ottawa in Trois-Rivières. Demidov blocks a hard slap shot from the point, goes to the bench in pain and finishes the game. His agent later says the ankle was fractured in the preseason. |
| Tuesday, September 29 | Season opener, a 3-2 win in Toronto. Demidov plays 15:11 and has no points. His agent says he told him after the game that something did not feel right. |
| Saturday, October 3 | At Pittsburgh, a 6-5 overtime loss. Demidov plays 16:03 with a goal and an assist. |
| Monday, October 5 | He misses practice for what the team calls a therapy day. |
| Tuesday, October 6 | The team announces a lower-body injury, two to four weeks. |
| Tuesday, November 3 | Four weeks later, he goes on the ice for a few minutes in the morning, his first time since the injury. |
| Wednesday, November 4 | Milstein talks about the ankle fracture on a podcast. |
| Thursday, November 5 | Hughes gives his update after the Utah game. |
The Estimate Against the Truth
The team’s message on October 6 was short: lower-body injury, two to four weeks. Head coach Martin St-Louis said the group had the depth to absorb it and could come in waves. Nobody outside the organization knew a bone was involved.
Milstein’s version is different. He said the ankle was already fractured before opening night, that Demidov felt something was wrong after the first game and played the second one anyway, and that an MRI was done only after that. In his words, young players “just play through pain.” He added that Demidov is getting ready and that he should be back in a few more weeks. The team has not announced a diagnosis.
Go back to September 21, the preseason game against Ottawa in Trois-Rivières. Demidov blocked a hard slap shot from the point, went to the bench in obvious discomfort and stayed in the game. That is the moment most fans point to, although the team has never said when the injury happened, and the reports of the game do not name the shooter.
Look at it from the bench. Demidov played 15:11 in Toronto and 16:03 in Pittsburgh, where he scored and added an assist, and he had just finished a rookie season of 19 goals and 62 points. A player who is producing at normal minutes does not look like a player with a broken ankle, and a trainer can only treat what a player tells him. Young players want to prove they belong, especially in their second year, and they hide pain. That is why the coach and the medical staff have to keep asking the question, and why the player has to answer it honestly.
What Hughes Said
Thursday night, after the 5-4 overtime win over Utah, Hughes spoke with reporters and said Demidov has had no setback in his recovery from the injury. He explained that the two-to-four-week range was an estimate and that this kind of estimate is never 100 percent accurate. The player and the team hoped for about two weeks at the start, but four weeks have passed because the nature of the injury makes projections uncertain. Hughes also said it is still impossible to give a return date, but Demidov skated twice this week and everything points to progress.
Two things matter here: no setback, and he is back on the ice. Hughes did not give a date, and the agent’s “few more weeks” fits with one report that Demidov will likely miss most of November’s games. Put it together and the realistic picture is a return later in the month at the earliest, with nothing confirmed by the team.
The New Rules for Injury Updates
Until now the Canadiens have not shared the details of injuries, except for a player who is out for the rest of the season. Hughes said the first responsibility will always be to protect the players and respect their privacy. What is new is that, from now on, the team will give an update on an injury only if a player has a setback, has aggravated the injury, or is expected to miss much more time than first announced.
Here is how I read it as a coach. The reasons are real: a player’s medical information is his own, and the less an opponent knows about who is hurt and where, the better. For fans there is a simple meaning too. Under this rule, silence means no setback, and an update means something has changed. The weakness is the gap in between. When the team says nothing, agents, podcasts and rumors fill it, and that is exactly what happened this week. A short, regular update with no medical detail would have kept this from becoming a story. We will keep following every confirmed update on our injury report.
What It Means for the Canadiens
The team is 10-3-3 with 23 points, second in the Atlantic Division, and it is 9-3-2 in the 14 games since Demidov last played. Kirby Dach moved up to the second line when he went down, and today the lines have Nick Suzuki back on the first line and Chris Kreider, Alex Newhook and Josh Anderson on the second, as you can see on the lineup page.
Demidov is the kind of winger who changes that second line. He led all rookies in scoring last season, and his eight-year, $73.2 million extension starts next season. For now, the steps to watch are the usual ones: skating alone, then practicing with the team, then a game. Until the Canadiens say otherwise, the information we have is that he is progressing, and there is no date.
Sources: RDS, TSN, the DFO Insider podcast as reported by Sportsnaut and Last Word on Sports, and official NHL statistics.
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