Disaster strikes as Canadiens lose Noah Dobson ahead of Game 1 vs Lightning

Per Renaud Lavoie of BPM Sports, the club will re-evaluate the defenceman in two weeks. With no guarantee of return at that point.

Read that again. Two weeks. No guarantee. The Canadiens play Game 1 on Sunday. Game 2 is Tuesday. By the time two weeks pass, this series could already be decided.

"Will do everything possible to return as quickly as possible" is something every injured player says. It means nothing when the timeline is two weeks and the guarantee is zero.

Dobson carries a $9.5 million cap hit, the seventh-highest among all defencemen in the NHL this season. That number was built on the expectation that he'd be out there when it matters most.

He finished the regular season with 47 points in 80 games, 2 power play goals and 5 power play assists. His entire value to this team lives on the blue line and the man advantage.

Alexandre Carrier is also day-to-day with an upper-body issue. So the Canadiens are potentially walking into Tampa Bay on Sunday without two of their regular defencemen.

Lane Hutson is going to carry an enormous load. The 22-year-old finished the regular season with 78 points in 82 games, 18 power play assists. He is talented enough to handle it. But no one should have to handle it alone against a Tampa Bay team that has been here before.

Montreal went 7-3 over their last 10 regular-season games. They beat the Lightning 4-1 on March 31 and 2-1 on April 9. The Canadiens had real momentum going into this series.

Losing Dobson right now is like a surgeon walking out mid-procedure. Everything else can still function, but the most important hand is missing.

Martin St-Louis has built something real with this team. The 48-24-10 finish, 106 points, speaks to that. But the blue line depth was always the thinnest part of this roster. And now it just got thinner, at the worst possible time.

Two weeks. No guarantee. Tampa Bay on Sunday.