From Beyond the Blueshirts

Anisimov wins silver, suffers hand injury

Monday May 24th 2010, 12:00 pm

Photo: Sovietsky Sport

In an interview in Sovietsky Sport, Russian head coach Viatcheslav Bykov revealed  that New York Rangers forward Artem Anisimovwas unable to finish Sunday’s gold medal game at the 2010 IIHF World Championship in Germany due to a hand injury suffered in the first period of the game.  The young forward, who’ll celebrate his 22nd birthday today with a flight back to Moscow before returning to New York later this week, received pain-killing injections between periods but still wasn’t able to hold a stick.   He played only two shifts in the second period before sitting out the third.

Bykov, who said the coaching staff was "very happy" with the performances of both Anisimov and fellow youngster Dmitri Kulikov, also reported that Sergei Fedorovsuffered a concussion as the result of his second period collision with Alexander Ovechkin. The 41-year old Fedorov was also unable to finish the game, leaving the Russians two centers short for the third period.

Russia lost the contest, 2-1, to Jaromir Jagr and an underdog Czech squad which was lead on defense by current Ranger Michael Roszival.  The much maligned blueliner led his team in ice time at the tournament and was named one of the Czech Republic’s top three players at the event, along with Jagr and goaltender Tomas Vokoun.

Should this be a cause for concern or to early to tell?