Jan 08 Andrei Kostitsyn Out "Indefinitely" After Knee Surgery

The Montreal Canadiens announced that forward Andrei Kostitsyn underwent knee surgery today in Montreal. According to the press release, he will be out indefinitely. Speculation has the healing time at 6-8 weeks which means that not only will he miss some extensive time away from the Habs’ line-up, but he will not be able to represent his country at the 2010 winter Olympics in Vancouver. 

The 24-year old Belorussian forward suffered a knee injury during the December 31st game in Florida, and missed the team’s last three games. During his absence the No. 1 line of which he formed with Tomas Plekanec and Michael Cammalleri has struggled, not scoring a point in that span. 

Kostitsyn tallied 25 points in 40 games with the Canadiens this season (12 goals, 13 assists) but came on strong of late as he had just seemed to have found his game after a slow start to the season. 

While it had appeared the Canadiens had their top two lines set with the addition of Benoit Pouliot to the Scott Gomez/Brian Gionta duo, it is back to the drawing board for the Habs and the same big question remains: Who will step up to fill in the spot of a top six forward? 

So far, despite many chances on the top spot, neither Max Pacciorety, Matt D’Agostini, Maxime Lapierre nor Guillaume Latendresse could fill that void. One has since been traded. Should the Canadiens give defenseman Marc-André Bergeron (dubbed Streit Lite by the Gazette’s Mike Boone) a shot?

Tags: Andrei Kostitsyn \ habs \ injury \ knee surgery \ Marc-Andre Bergeron \ Max Pacciorety \ Michael Cammalleri \ Montreal Canadiens \ Tomas Plekanec