More photos » Paul Connors - AP

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Hey, remember this guy? Plucky young guy Viktor Tikhonov? You may (or may not) have been wondering where he went off to and if we'd ever be seeing him again. He didn't make the Phoenix Coyotes out of camp this year and was sent down to the AHL. However, in his contract he had a provision that allowed him to be loaned to the KHL if he wasn't going to be seeing significant time with the Coyotes. So Viktor headed off to the land of his father, and more notably his famous grandfather of the same name, to play for the Severstal Cherepovets.

With Severstal Tikhonov was getting respectable numbers and more importantly getting lots and lots of ice time against some pretty good players. His 17:21 per game is 4th on his team for forwards and would amount to being a 2nd line winger on a team just above the AHL in terms of the level of play. Even more impressive is while Cherepovets didn't make the playoffs by a long shot (they were pretty terrible) Tikhonov was a +11 in only 25 games played. While +/- isn't the end all be all of stats, when the next closest forward is a +3? That's kind of significant. Here's a look at his stats for the season with Severstal...

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Tom Gannam - AP

Phoenix Coyotes' Sami Lepisto shows everyone his "Grrrr I'm focused" face. (AP Photo/Tom Gannam)

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When these Olympic games started, if you had said that the only Coyote that would make it to the semi-finals would be defenseman Sami Lepisto I would have laughed in your face. That is however the case as the Finns have surprisingly made it to play the United States later today. I'm not sure if the biggest surprise is that they made it this far or that neither the Czech team with Zbynek Michalek on the blueline, or the Russian team with Coyotes goalie Ilya Bryzgalov, made it to the Semis at all. Both were major contenders, but RUssia just wasn't a match for the Canadian tam they met in the Quarterfinals.

Back to Sami though... While I like the guy, I'm hoping that he gets the loss tonight. Even with a loss though Finland would get to a bronze medal game. Hopefully Sami and the Finns end up with at least something that he can wear around the locker room in front of Bryz and Z just to rub it in a little bit.He hasn't been getting in on the scoring much for the Finnish team though 0-0-0 so far, but he's getting second pairing minutes now. He also has 4 penalty minutes. Maybe not a dominant performance, but It doesn't matter if his team comes home with a medal.

Good luck Sami! (Just not tonight.)

More photos » Ross D. Franklin - AP

2 months ago: Phoenix Coyotes' Scottie Upshall celebrates his goal against the Columbus Blue Jackets in the first period of an NHL hockey game Monday, Dec. 21, 2009, in Glendale, Ariz. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)

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Per Coyotes.com

Phoenix Coyotes General Manager Don Maloney announced today that Coyotes forward Scottie Upshall will be out of the lineup indefinitely after sustaining an injury to his right knee during the team’s game versus the Calgary Flames on Jan. 28. A follow-up evaluation and MRI by the Club’s medical staff confirmed a torn anterior cruciate ligament (ACL). An ACL surgical procedure is expected to be scheduled.

While the Coyotes have been a score by committee kind of team, it's never a fun thing to have one of your top producers go down to an injury like this. Some Coyote fans are probably hopeful that this is still a shorter term thing, but when the Coyotes say Indefinite, this time they mean that they're hoping to have him back in time for training camp. ACL tears, when they require surgery, aren't a short term fix. According to WebMD and other medical sources they can take anywhere from four months to a year to rehab and get back to playing shape depending on the severity of the injury. It's terrible that we lost him to some fluke play where his skate got jammed in the boards.

So what are we going to do in the meantime? Mikkel Boedker is up from San Antonio and scored in his first game back, so that's an encouraging sign. We've really spread the scoring around so that helps in terms of not being reliant on the 18-14-32 in point production even though it's still painful to lose. I would imagine that this has got to make any talks the Coyotes are having about getting another scorer even more important and more hurried to get done. I still wouldn't know who we would package to get someone like Scottie, but now it's more likely than ever that we see a new face or two before the deadline.