What's the real story with Alex Semin's knee?On Monday, Tarik reported that Semin's agent, Mark Gandler, claimed that reports of a supposed knee injury to the winger were exaggerated and that the pain was "as insignificant as anything you can have."
A day later, this report claimed otherwise (note that this could just be cribbed from the same report to which Gandler was presumably responding). Translated via Google, the text reads:
Semin may miss season startThe translation could be better, of course, but that headline's pretty clear.
Legionary of NHL Alexander Semin, who was in St. Petersburg, Russia left because of deteriorating knee injury. According to "Sport" day by day, the operation was ordered by doctors to "Washington" even at the end of the season, but he ignored the requirement and now hardly able to recover to a new regular season.
So is there cause for concern? I guess that depends on how inclined you are to believe the agent for a player entering a contract year (and an online translator of a questionable foreign source, for that matter).
6 comments:
well if true, that really sucks
If Semin was a consummate professional, I'd worry less.
yeah, if true, that's devastating. not the kind of thing i want to be reading at this time of year.
In Vogel's Caps report last Wednesday, Mike categorically stated that that the Caps NEVER told Semin he needed to have surgery on his knee. So, if that's the case why should any report that is based on him refusing surgery hold any kind of credence?
I agree that the one thing we can almost certainly throw out is the notion that the Caps told him to have surgery - if he was injured, he would not have been allowed to play in the Worlds (then again, for the conspiratorially-inclined, perhaps his showing up late to camp and getting kicked off the team was merely a cover for a lingering injury).
Tarik posted in the comments section of his most recent blog entry that "I'm hearing that Semin's knee will NOT be a problem."
Here's the thing...if Semin has a serious problem with his knee, one that requires surgery and may cause him to miss the beginning of the season, then he wouldn't have been able to play on it. Seriously, I've had minor knee surgery for something that prevented me from running more than a mile, and hockey puts much more stress and pressure on the knee. Sports doctors don't like resorting to surgery until everything else has been tried, because the knee is a major joint. That's why I don't buy this story out of Russia--it makes absolutely no medical sense. Gardiner's version actually sounds legit, despite of the agent's reputation.
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