Montreal Canadiens winger Patrik Laine will miss the next three to four months after having surgery to repair a core muscle, the team announced Saturday.

Laine, a seven-time 20-goal scorer, has faced a challenging start in his second season with the Canadiens. He recorded one point, an assist, in five games, with his last appearance coming Oct. 16 in the Canadiens’ 3-2 overtime win against the Nashville Predators.

Since then, he has been out of the lineup on a day-to-day basis with what was initially designated as a lower body injury.

The Canadiens announced Laine’s injury a week after they said that defenseman Kaiden Guhle would be out for up to six weeks with a lower body injury. Guhle’s injury left the Canadiens without one of their top-four defensemen who was fifth on the team in average ice time at 19:14.

Laine’s departure comes as the Canadiens are having one of the strongest starts of any team. They entered Saturday with six wins through their first nine games while being tied with the Vegas Golden Knights for the third-most points in the NHL.

Being without Laine, who was serving in a bottom-six role, means the Canadiens’ potential bottom-six winger setup is expected to feature Josh Anderson, Zack Bolduc, Kirby Dach and Brendan Gallagher.

Should the timeline for Laine’s recovery hold, the earliest he could return to the Canadiens’ lineup would be late January, with the notion he could be healthy by late February.

That timeline could also create questions about his availability to represent Finland at the Milan-Cortina Olympics that start Feb. 6 and end Feb. 22.

Laine has represented his nation at different international competitions but not the Olympics, with the NHL allowing its players to return to the Games for the first time since 2014.

He guided Finland to a World Junior Championship in 2016 and has been part of two more teams that have won silver. He played for Finland at the 4 Nations Face-Off last season in which he had three assists in as many games.

Knowing it could be without Laine is the latest injury concern facing Finland, the defending Olympic men’s ice hockey champions. Finland’s chances of winning a consecutive gold first came under question when Florida Panthers center Aleksander Barkov was likely lost for the season after suffering a torn ACL and MCL in training camp.

That injury is expected to see Barkov, who is fourth all time among Finnish players in NHL points, miss between seven to nine months, which would mean he misses the Olympics.

In addition to Barkov, Finland has seen others such as Kaapo Kakko, Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen, Rasmus Ristolainen and Juuso Valimaki all miss the start of the NHL regular season while recovering from their respective injuries.