As per his agent Allan Walsh, defensemen Andrei Markov announced his retirement on Thursday afternoon. The announcement first came on Twitter from Igor Eronko of Sport-Express. The announcement doesn’t come as a surprise as Markov’s contract in the KHL expired at the end of the season. Markov was originally looking at returning to the NHL at the beginning of the season, but failed to strike a deal with an NHL club, thus deciding to resume playing hockey back home.
Markov’s Impact With The Habs
The Russian born defensemen spent 16 seasons in the NHL as a member of the Montreal Canadiens. He had 119 goals and 453 assists for 572 points while finishing just 10 games short of the coveted feat of 1,000 games. Markov is easily gonna go down in Habs history as only Jean Beliveau, Henri Richard, Maurice Richard and Larry Robinson spent more time with the Canadiens than Markov did. He was also part of the Russian Olympic team in 2006, 2010 and 2014. In 17 Olympic games, he had one goal and seven assists for eight points.
During his time with the Habs, he was a shutdown defensemen who could also be relied upon to eat up big minutes. It would be two major knee injuries that would lead to Markov’s decline as he missed the last 65 games of the 2010-11 season and the first seven games of the Stanley Cup Playoffs. Markov would suffer yet another injury early into the following season which would keep him out for most of the season.
Markov would take his talents to Russia at the beginning of the 2012-13 season playing in 21 games in the KHL before returning to the Canadiens later that season. He would end up putting up 30 points in 40 games with the Habs that season and would go on to spent the next four years with the team. In 2017, Markov would once again leave for Russia, spending the last three years of his career there. During that time, he put up eight goals and 46 assists for 54 points in 127 games played.
From all of us here at The Puck Authority, we would like to wish Andrei Markov a very happy and healthy retirement.