How Will Markov Injury Affect Contract Negotiations?

[RGM81]

Unconfirmed reports out of Montreal have him being out for three months with this latest injury to his right knee. He had just returned two weeks ago from the injury sustained last spring when Matt Cooke hit him awkwardly into the boards.

For those who didn't see it, he collided knee-on-knee with Eric Staal last night with about 3 minutes left in a long-decided game. The scuffling that ensued left the Habs with a 5-on-3 and they scored twice to pad the final tally to 7-2. I'm sure that the Habs would have rather left the two goals on the table and still have Markov uninjured.

This is a contract year for Markov.

He's in the final year of a deal paying him $5.75M per season.

Obviously this latest injury will put things on the shelf until he returns. Problem is, we don't know when that return will be. If he is indeed out three months, that leaves March and the playoffs to evaluate him and what sort of compensation he should receive in the future.

It's a tough dilemma for Pierre Gauthier.

[xelloss1012]

I saw a replay of the event on HNIC and I thought it might have been a knee-on-knee hit, but it happened so quick.

Here's a TSN article on it:
http://www.tsn.ca/nhl/story/?id=341159

The hit is apparently on the same surgically-repaired knee from the Cooke hit during the playoffs.

I also recalled that he did have a knee-on-knee hit some four years ago, possibly at the World Championships. This was before the start of a new four-year contact where the doctors examined his knee for any problems.

I can only hope that Markov is not seriously injured, but knowing the history of bad luck with these incidences does not help.

If he is sidelined for more than another month or two of this season, it may greatly affect any contract negotiations I think, and it will not help with Don Meehan is his agent.

With Meehan as his agent, any contract negotiations potentially worry me since some of his players have bad runs on their new and large contracts from either performance and/or injury issues. Examples of this is Ryan Smyth (when he signed with the Avalanche) and Wade Redden (when he left the Senators for the Rangers). In a number of cases, the players either end up as a free agent elsewhere or traded.

I hope Markov will still be in bleu, blanc, et rouge after this season or I will not be happy. His average TOI has been around 23-24 minutes a game since 2003-04 making him a top-pairing defensemen by the numbers. Losing him means the powerplay will likely flounder again as he makes up at least 5% of the PP% by himself. This reminds of when Mark Streit ended up signing with the Islanders and the Habs powerplay was greatly weakened after he left.