Operations: Kirby Dach has to ask Andrei Markov what he put in his cereal

Dose
Crédit: EDMONTON, AB - MARCH 12: Andrei Markov #79 of the Montreal Canadiens skates during the game against the Edmonton Oilersin Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. (Photo by Andy Devlin/NHLI via Getty Images)

I don’t understand why colleague Maxime Truman is being criticized for what he said about Kirby Dach. Earlier this week, he mentioned that Kirby Dach had not yet recovered from knee surgery. He never said he’d suffered a setback in his progress,but he’s the one who’s been credited – wrongly – with the opposite of what Eric Engels said, that the Canadiens’ center forward hasn’t suffered a setback in his rehab. It’s easier to criticize Max than to find the source of the setback story, I guess…In fact, everyone right now is wondering whether Dach will be able to be fully fit at camp. That’s the worrying part about the center: no one has stood up to say he’ll be 100% ready for the start of camp and the season.But hey.All that to say that on yesterday’s Sick Podcast, Tony Marinaro approached the subject with an interesting angle: since Dach is on his second knee operation, he should talk a little to a player who’s also had two knee operations… and recovered well. We’re talking about Andrei Markov here.

[content-ads]Marinaro is right: after his second knee operation, Markov was back in top form. He was playing better than ever and clearly had found THE recipe for a comeback, despite his age and the operations.And Brian Wilde points out: after his first operation, Markov wasn’t playing well. That made his magnificent comeback after the second operation even harder to understand.Do you see any links with Dach, who has had two knee operations in the last two years and still looked bad last year, after operation #1? I do, anyway. Marinaro is right: Dach should give Markov a call to see what helped him recover. Because if the Russian put something special in his cereal that helped him, Geoff Molson would have to free up some budget to send Dach a case…But for that, Dach has to know what it is. Iknow that Markov, who we saw again in Montreal in the last few months for the first time in a long time, isn’t the most talkative of the lot. But seeing him help Dach at this level would be worth its weight in gold. After all, the Canadiens need to see Kirby Dach take it to the next level.[spacer title=’Overtime’]- That was crazy, that.

– Wow.

– Sidney Crosby turns 38.