Canadiens lose struggling Pacioretty to knee injury

Montreal Canadiens forward Max Pacioretty and defenseman Victor Mete will miss several weeks as they recover from injuries.

Both players were injured Friday in Montreal’s 6-3 win against the New York Islanders. Pacioretty, the Canadiens captain, injured a knee and is expected to miss four to six weeks. Mete fractured a finger and is expected to be out six weeks.

Pacioretty has seen his production drop this season. He has 17 goals and 20 assists in 64 games with a defensive rating of minus-16.

The left winger had been one of the league’s most consistent scorers, reaching the 30-goal mark in five of the past six seasons. He had 15 goals in 44 games in the lockout-shortened 2012-13 season.

Mete, a mobile rookie defenseman who earned a spot on the team in training camp, has seven assists and a plus-5 rating in 49 games. He also helped Canada win gold at the 2018 world junior hockey championship.

Blues

Free-falling St. Louis will be without defenseman Jay Bouwmeester for the rest of the season with a left hip injury. General manager Doug Armstrong said Bouwmeester will miss four to six months and that forward Scottie Upshall will be reevaluated in four weeks after injuring a knee. The Blues have lost eight of their past 10 games to fall out of the top three in the Central Division and out of a playoff position in the Western Conference. Bouwmeester, 35, has only dressed in 35 games this season and has two goals and five assists. But he was averaging 20 minutes a game when in the lineup, ice time the Blues will have to make up for. Upshall was injured Saturday against Dallas.

Wild

Rookie forward Luke Kunin is out for the rest of the season with a torn ACL in his left knee. Kunin was injured Sunday against Detroit and is expected to have surgery in the coming weeks. The 20-year-old was most recently recalled by the Wild Feb. 27 and has recorded two goals and two assists 19 games with Minnesota this season. Kunin scored his first goal Oct. 26 against the New York Islanders, becoming the first player in team history to score his first career goal short-handed.

Capitals

Alex Ovechkin is two goals away from becoming the 20th player in NHL history to reach 600, and if he does it in his next 13 games, he would be the fourth to take fewer than 1,000 games, joining Wayne Gretzky (718), Mario Lemieux (719) and Brett Hull (900), according to the Elias Sports Bureau.