We’ve already been described to Jeff Gorton as a guy whose humor relied heavily on self-mockery. We do not speak to him often, but in his rare public interventions, the executive vice-president of hockey operations of the Canadian plays this card wonderfully.

This was the case in the Habs’ end-of-season report that he did with his general manager, Kent Hughes, on Friday. Assessment whose interventions in French were translated to him live, in his headset.

Between two questions, he is asked if he understands what is being said. ” Yes. I notice that I often hear “lots of wounds”! he replied, the last three words said in French. Hilarity followed, the kind of moment when you tell yourself that it is not because you are laughing that it is funny.

The players weren’t laughing. Like their bosses, they have devoted part of the balance sheet to answering questions about injuries, their own, those of their teammates, and how the team is dealing with them.

Sean Monahan has revealed he played despite a broken foot. On December 1, the Habs landed in Calgary to face the Flames, the only organization Monahan had known before the CH. His arrival at the arena with a protective boot had put him on equal footing with Terry Fox in the hearts of the Calgarians, especially since he had then delivered an anthology performance. After the match, he described his injury as “minor”, at a time when the condition of his hips, repaired thanks to an operation, caused more concern.

Monahan would raise the white flag four days later in Vancouver and hasn’t played since. His season lasted 25 games.

It was not the broken foot that put him on the back burner for the next four months, but rather a groin injury, because he was compensating for his injury, he explained. “I definitely regret playing. But in the end, it was my decision. »

Brendan Gallagher, another club veteran, revealed he broke his foot “in the 12th game of the season”, which brings us to November 5. But it was only after the match on November 29 that he took a break.

Like Monahan, Gallagher was careful not to blame the medical team or the coaches. He blamed himself. “I played despite my injury for a month, then I took a month off and everything said it was healed, but it wasn’t. I suffered another fracture in the same place when I returned,” said the right winger.

Gallagher finished the season with 37 games on the clock: the first 22, 3 holiday games during his brief return, then the last 12 of the season.

Earlier this week, Juraj Slafkovsky revealed that the day before his season-ending knee injury in January, he had suffered a nasty fall on the same knee. Cole Caufield had also mentioned two incidents with his shoulder in the weeks leading up to his operation.

“It was tough getting to the clinic some days and having to wait for a table, there were so many players,” Caufield said.

For the second straight season, the Habs led the NHL in games missed by players due to injury. The figures vary depending on the source consulted, but they have in common to make you dizzy. According to NHL Injury Viz, CH players have missed 600 games, a figure that doesn’t include Carey Price. The team was therefore deprived of seven players per game, on average.

That’s why Hughes and Gorton were hounded on the subject during their press briefing. The end-of-season interviews they conducted with the players on Friday were a “first step” in the internal audit they intend to conduct.

“If a player blocks a shot and there’s no apparent sign of injury, you have to trust them on some level,” Hughes added. […] I don’t want to leave the impression that we take this lightly. That said, no matter how well we sketch out the best plans, if we can’t understand what’s going on on the medical side, we can never improve. This will be at the top of the priorities. »

Hughes wouldn’t go into specifics, but agreed that changes could be made “in personnel or in processes.”

Players have been softer than their bosses, with several citing bad luck. Their reaction is understandable, because they would be very frowned upon to publicly criticize those who try to treat them with small onions on a daily basis with, one can assume, the best intentions in the world.

“It’s bad luck. I can’t believe it will happen to us again, wished Jake Allen. I have never seen anything like it. Knock on wood. The guys have four or five months to get back into shape. We don’t want to go through that again. »

We guess they are not the only ones.