Music: {allcanada} MARKOV SIDELINED WITH REPORTED RIB ISSUE

Monday, October 29, 2012

{allcanada} MARKOV SIDELINED WITH REPORTED RIB ISSUE

The Montreal Gazette alludes to the possibility Canadiens defenceman Andrei Markov might be on his way back to Montreal from Russia to heal his tender ribs.

The 33-year-old veteran was felled in the second period of Friday's match with his Kontinental Hockey League club Vityaz Chekhov, evidently colliding awkwardly with an opponent or the boards during a game against Yugra Khanty-Mansiisk. He was escorted from the ice by a team doctor and did not return.

On Sunday, both Sovietsky Sport's Genadi Boguslavsky and Moscow's RIA Novosti news agency reported that Markov would not travel with Yityaz on this week's three-game road trip that precedes the KHL schedule break. He'll thus miss games against Traktor Chelyabinsk on Monday, Avtomobilist Yekaterinburg on Wednesday and Metallurg Magnitogorsk on Friday.

Vityaz is next scheduled to play Dynamo Moscow on Nov. 14.

"The Yugra players aren't guilty of the injury," said a Vityaz spokesman, quoted by Novosti. "Andrei himself just skated into the boards in an unfortunate way."

François Gagnon of La Presse, on assignment in Russia to report on the KHL during the NHL lockout, reached Markov at midday on Saturday.

"I was trying to check an opponent and he leaned at the last second," Markov told Gagnon. "Instead of hitting him with my shoulder, it was my ribs that took the impact. I was winded and returned to the dressing room. That's all."

This muddies a little whether Markov in fact collided with an opponent or, as Novosti reports, the boards. But it's irrelevant, really, his ribs tenderized regardless.

"I'm alive and well. Really," Markov told Gagnon on Saturday. "I don't know if I'll play the next game or how long it will take to be rid of the pain. But it's nothing serious. And no, the knee wasn't touched."