Dec 03 It's all Over but the Crying for Andrei Markov

Well, it’s finally official. In what was the longest wait for the most obvious announcement, the Montreal Canadiens finally came out and confirmed, essentially that Andrei Markov’s season was over. 

With an operation to repair a meniscus and reconstruct the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) set for  Wednesday December 8^th, he is expected to be out for at least the rest of this season, if not part of next. The good news if you are the “glass half full” type of person, is that he is expected to  make a complete recovery.

It will be interesting to see what the Canadiens do with the cap space now made available to them with Markov now being placed on the long term injured reserve. With just over 6 Million available to them, they could conceivably be buyers for one if not two key additions to the roster as a final push for the playoffs and dare I say beyond.

The other question that also arises, is what will they do with Markov now? This was the last year of his contract with the Habs and it was rumoured that Montreal had made Markov a 5 year offer, but the habs defenseman countered with a longer term. All that is now moot and I’m assuming, at least for the time being, that all contract talks are now off until at least this coming offseason.

So the question here is, do they part ways with an injury prone, yet perennial all-star defenseman (which the team seems to have found their way without him lately) or do you make a loyal player (who already took a hometown discount the first time around) a 1-2 year offer and roll the dice that you get the valuable 2 way defenseman any team would kill to have.. if he’s healthy?

Time and wins will tell.

Read on for the official Habs press release.