A report out of Russia tonight states that former Dallas Stars Sergei Zubov will officially retire from playing the game of hockey after over 1,200 NHL games and two season in the KHL with SKA St. Petersburg.

The sourcing on it is a litte funny and sounds a lot like "I heard it from my sister's ex-boyfriend's roommate..." but the short of it is that OutsidetheGarden.com posted it on their message boards and that comes from a google translation of a russian news site called newsru.com. You can see the article in Russian here and if you're resourceful, give us a better translation.

The long and short of it is that Zubov left the NHL after the 2008-2009 season when no one was willing to take a chance on him for the money he still felt he could earn, and he spent a year with SKA St. Petersburg and then a year off the ice with them this season when a hip issue kept him away from the game completely.

He will (reportedly) undergo a surgery for his hip joint and probably stay in Russia to be involved with the game there in some capacity.

This means that Mike Modano, Sergei Zubov and Jere Lehtinen will likely all announce retirement during the 2010-2011 season and go out together even though they all ended up in different locale's before the end. In the end Zubov needed his body to tell him when to quit just like Modano apparently has done.

As fans we moved on from Zubov's time here a couple of off-seasons ago but it's now time to wonder about when to bring him back and give him the recognition he so richly deserves. After all, we got to say goodbye to Modano and Lehtinen but not Sergei. After a new owner takes control of this team some day the ceremonies will be planned and the three of them brought back to the AAC, possibly (hopefully?) together, to be honored in the rafters and by the people that were lucky enough to see them play all those years in Dallas uniforms.

Here's an additional source listing this story and calling it a hip replacement. And another.