Richard Wolowicz
Well folks, French Immersion couldn't help but have a hearty chuckle when we flounced into the Montreal Canadiens dressing room recently.
You see, there are a bunch of Habs who have bought into the whole "Movember" upper-lip soup-comb thing, some with hilarious results.
Lars Eller? We've seen more hair on bowling balls, it's wise to not even try. Benoit Pouliot? Way to channel Salvador Dali. Carey Price? Looks like a teenager who's trying really hard not to get carded at the dep.
Coming from swarthy, stocky, cave-dwelling hill folk as we do, we scoff at these feeble efforts. Hahaha.
So do some of the Habs.
"There's some pretty weak ones. Mine's a little scraggly too, but the worst is Dustin Boyd. I shouldn't say too much, but I'm not too worried about comebacks from him," said Josh Gorges, who has a little D'Artagnan/Cardinal Richelieu thing going on.
Fellow defenceman Alexandre Picard, another smooth-skinned twentysomething, explained his decision to eschew the facial hair - which is for an estimable cause, it has to be said - as lingering fall-out from an ill-fated experiment while with the Ottawa Senators.
Then-teammate Antoine Vermette proposed a mustache-growing competition to try and turn around a long losing streak - the Sens still ended up with a lottery pick.
"I have kind of a Zorro mustache . . . I decided not to do it (this time) for my own personal sake," laughed Picard.
And if Picard can laugh, it's because he's now going to be seeing a whole lot more ice time than he has in the last couple of weeks.
He's the man who will attempt to fill the Andrei Markov-sized hole on the Montreal blueline. Yes, the Russian is crank once again, laid low by another knee injury, his third in a little over 20 months and second to his right knee since May.
We expressed some thoughts on the subject in Canada's all-colour, all-conquering national newspaper this morning, but suffice it to say that even if this one turns out to be relatively minor - and don't believe everything you read, no one knows for sure right now how bad it is - there may be cause to start thinking seriously about l'apres-Markov.
Don't get us wrong, Andrei is as key a cog to this here machine as there is, but the soon-to-be 32 year old is starting to show a little road wear, no?
And with the Kaberles and Wisniewskis of the world coming up as UFAs next year (think they could lure Nick Lidstrom for one last go-round? Sheldon Souray, all is forgiven!) there may not be as great a sense of urgency to ink the Russian as there might have been last year or this summer, when his knee was progressing nicely.
Plus, P.K. Subban is going to be the lead horse on this here wagon train sooner rather than later.
In a perfect world you have both, but as FI has learned through cruel experience, the world ain't perfect.
There's nothing close to a Markov-like talent in Hamilton at the moment, so unless Yannick Weber or Frederic St. Denis or Mathieu Carle discover some hidden reserve of talent - or there's a sudden offensive blossoming by Alexei Yemelin (or is it Emelin? You know, the Russian guy who always makes noises about coming over and never does?) there's no cheap, entry-level-contract goodness to be had.
The fact that Markov went to the trouble of taking out Canadian citizenship supposes that he'd like to stay right where he is, but he's not mental, so it'll cost big dollars - and a guy with his injury history is a heavy risk, whether or not there's a logical replacement waiting in the wings.
It's not to say he won't be signed, but this latest injury means there almost certainly won't be a definitive answer to that question before next June.
In the immediate term, the Habs have to figure out what to do on the power-play, which was just beginning to show signs of life - if we're being honest, Markov was no screaming hell in his first four or five games back.
Roman Hamrlik could be part of the answer (although if he is, we don't want to know the question, bah-dum-bump), so could a forward on the point, as in the Great Cammalleri Experiment of a week or two ago.
Either way, Markov's absence will certainly hurt, but perhaps not in catastrophic fashion.
The Habs did okay without him last year when he had the freak foot tendon thing, and this season they managed to win a whack of games sans Andrei, although many of them were against weaker opponents.
Jacques Martin said something interesting (shock! horror!) earlier this week about why that is.
The fact that his squad is playing a more cohesive team game, presumably a lingering effect from the playoff run, makes them more stingy defensively as a whole.
That's witnessed in the Habs' shots-against, which is the lowest in living memory at the moment.
Better defence means more leeway to rampage forward, and the scoring balance provided by the Ph.D line, as the Montreal Gazoo calls them (Pouliot-Halpern-Darche, geddit?) has helped keep opposing teams honest.
Then there's the fact that Markov is the only player to get hurt so far this year - there are no wide-eyed call-ups wondering where they need to be on the ice (we're looking at you, Max Pacioretty).
Part of that is surely a function of team fitness, which has improved - every coach complains his team is out of shape in his first year on the job - and a greater emphasis on managing players' efforts in practice and on off-days.
"Rest is really important, and team depth is really important. That way you can avoid over-taxing certain players," Martin said.
Now if they could only figure out how to grow some respectable whiskers.