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This has been a brutal preseason for star players with Los Angeles’ Drew Doughty and Toronto’s William Nylander getting banged up, and unfortunately we’ve got another one, and this time it’s newly acquired Montreal Canadien Patrik Laine.

The sharpshooter struggled to get his game back on track in Columbus after some stellar seasons in Winnipeg. Some off–ice issues didn’t help, so a change of scenery seemed like a good idea, and in mid-August, the Jackets traded Laine to the Montreal Canadiens.

That seemed like a solid fit and playing under Martin St. Louis should do Laine some good, but the last thing anyone wanted to see was what happened on Saturday night against the Toronto Maple Leafs.

Laine carried the puck into the offensive zone just a few minutes into the first period. Leafs forward Cedric Pare was waiting for him and stuck his leg out which resulted in a knee-on-knee hit that sent Laine crumpling to the ice.

Those knee-on-knee hits are just absolutely terrible. You can do so much damage.

I don’t know if Pare did it intentionally or not — it looked to me like it was a little reactionary after he got caught standing still just inside the ozone — and there was no penalty called on the play.

Yeah, I was surprised too.

Pare never wound up in the sin bin, not even after Habs big man Arber Xhekaj jumped him in a bid to make pay for that hit on Laine.

Pare got the worst of that exchange. Meanwhile, Xhekaj earned himself a whopping 27 penalty minutes for all of this, which took place less than five minutes into the game, thanks to a fighting major, a game misconduct, and additional penalties for instigating.

Toronto went on to win this one 2-1, bringing their preseason record to 2-0-2 (and this may be nothing, but I thought it was odd: every game they’ve played has been a one-goal game and the last three have been 2-1 games), but the big story is Laine.

The plan is for him to be a huge piece of this Montreal team that is trying to build itself back into a playoff contender, and while we haven’t heard any updates it sure didn’t look good.

Hopefully, whatever he’s dealing with isn’t too severe, and he’s back in action sooner rather than later.