One of the question marks for next season is Andrei Markov. Will he remain the Habs' quarterback at the blue line like he used to be a few years ago? Will he be able to generate the same level of offense? The general feeling seems rather pessimistic with some even suggesting that Markov is finished. His meager 3 points and minus-4 in 13 games at the end of last season were the basis of this speculation last summer. Now, his slow start in the KHL seems to corroborate the feeling that he won't be able to put anything near the numbers he used to just three years ago when he was considered one of the Top-5 defensemen in the league.
Last night, Markov was back from a minor rib injury and played with Vityaz which won 4:3 in over time over Metallurg Mg (Malkin's team). Markov finished the game with the following stats according to the KHL:
24:38 TOI on 26 shifts, 0 Pts, 0 SOG, +1
Or did he? After simply watching the highlights of the game on the official KHL youtube channel, I came, to my surprise, to a different conclusion.
At 4:18 begins the sequence that leads to Vityaz's 3rd goal of the game. The left point defenseman(whose number is not visible) makes a pass to the right point defenseman (#36 Yakov Seleznyov) who takes a one-timer shot at the net which is tipped by a forward (#69 Nikita Dvurechensky) for the goal.
A few seconds later at 4:27, for a split second you can identify that the left point defenseman was indeed Andrei Markov.
However, no point was credited to Markov for that goal. Unlike the NHL, the KHL does not automatically credit secondary assists to the third last teammate that has touched the puck. You need to "be part of the play" to earn it. I could however not find an official definition that differentiates an "unearned secondary assist" from an "earned" one. Even if I personally believe that Markov was a contributor on that play, whether he deserves an assist or not on that last goal is debatable. There is however absolutely no doubt possible that he did deserve one on the next goal.
At 5:28 is the begging of the play that leads to the 4th winning goal in over time on a 4vs3: #94 Alexander Korolyuk makes a pass to #27 Andrei Markov who makes another pass at #2 Brian Fahey who shoots and scores. On the official KHL scoresheet, Fahey was rewarded with the goal and Korolyuk with an assist. However, Markov received no assist. Find the error.
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This demonstration leads to the following: Was this a one-time fluke from the KHL? or are Markov's statistics systematically not adequately reported? Further research (such as reviewing all past Vityaz highlights) would be necessary to answer that question. Also, whom would benefit from such systematic underreporting? :)
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