KHL.ru is paying tributes to the legends of the league. Today, we’re looking at Alexei Yashin, who became a poster boy for the KHL in the early days and almost always made himself available to play for Russia at World Championships.
From idol to outcast in Ottawa
Alexei Yashin grew up in a sporting family. His mother played for the Uralochka volleyball team and his father played handball for Kalnininets. At first, they wanted their son to do gymnastics but the coach warned that the youngster had the wrong physique and should a different sport. Gymnastics’ loss was hockey’s gain: Yashin began skating in his courtyard, then joined a hockey school.
In the early 90s, promising Russian players tended not to remain at home for long. Yashin was eligible for the NHL draft in 1992. The following season he became a leading figure on Dynamo’s champion team and, aged just 19, left for North America.
In some ways, Yashin was lucky. He arrived in Ottawa to join a Senators team that had played just one year in the NHL. Moreover, the Sens had a rough debut: 24 points from 84 games, with 70 losses and just 10 wins. As a result, the Russian forward was immediately identified as a team leader and got plenty of game time. Yashin rose to the challenge and led the team in scoring in his rookie season with 79 points in 83 games.
Yashin never looked back. By 1998, he was Ottawa’s captain. Previously, Alexander Mogilny was the only Russia to captain an NHL team. But Mogilny was an interim captain at Buffalo following Pat Lafontaine’s injury. Yashin had the job for the full season. However, that was the last successful campaign for Yashin with the Senators.
He scored 94 (44+50) points in 82 games and asked for a contract review. This was the second time the forward argued with the management over money. The first dispute was in 1995, and ended with the head coach and GM departing the club. However, in 1999, Yashin missed the whole season and gained nothing. He ended up playing for Ottawa the following year for the same $3.6 million he had sought to increase.
For Sens’ fans, their former idol was now an outcast. They didn’t limit themselves to jeers and whistles from the tribunes. Other stunts included smashing up a car painted with Yashin’s number and even burning a scarecrow dressed in Yashin’s jersey. Nonetheless, Alexei kept on scoring 88 (40+48) points in 82 games. At the end of the season, he was traded to the Islanders where he secured a record-breaking contract: 10 years at $87.5 million.
Team Russia’s great hope
In the 1990s, Russian NHLers hardly ever appeared at the World Championships. Cry-offs were commonplace. Only Valery Kamensky and Alexei Kovalev strengthened the national team at the tournaments in 1994 and 1998. But Yashin was the exception. He played for his country regularly.
Yashin’s last tournament for Russia was the 2006 Olympics. Prior to that, he missed just three events: the Worlds in 1995, 1998 and 2002. He captained his country in 1996, 1999 and 2001. His international career began with gold: in 1993 in Munich the national team won its first medal in two years. The great USSR team was still a fresh memory. Nobody could imagine that Russia’s next medal would not come until 2002, and its next gold in 2008.
Yashin’s best international tournaments were the World Championships in 1996 and 1999. He produced bright, productive play. In the first, he had 9 (4+5) points in 8 games. Three years later it was 9 (8+1) in six. Both in Austria and in Norway, Russia was close to winning medals.
Alexei Yashin
Games 237
Points 191
1993 World Champion
1998 and 2002
Olympic Silver and Bronze medallist
2008 MVP Russian Superleague
2009, 2010, 2011 KHL All-Star
2010 Spengler Cup winner
Won Olympic silver 22.02.1998
Won World Championship gold at the first attempt 02.05.1993
Won World Championship bronze 15.05.2005
Helped Team Russia won Olympic bronze 23.02.2002
Awarded Russian Superleague MVP 11.04.2008
02.09.2008 First KHL game for Lokomotiv against Salavat Yulaev
06.09.2008 Scored his first KHL goal on Metallurg Magnitogorsk
In 1996, after beating Canada and the USA in the group stage, Russia stumbled against the North Americans in the playoffs. In the semifinal, Russia was up 2-0 on Canada, only to lose in a shoot-out. Then the bronze medal game saw a 3-0 lead evaporate as the USA rallied to win 4-3.
In 1999, Yashin was the only NHLer on the team. He had eight goals in the first four games, including a hat-trick against Finland and two against the Czechs. But he couldn’t score in the next two as Russia fell 1-4 to Sweden and was tied 2-2 by Slovakia in a game it had to win to make the semifinal.
A year earlier, Yashin played in a historic tournament. In 1998, for the first time, NHL players were eligible to go to the Olympics. Canada and the USA were expected to dominate, as they did in the 1996 World Cup. However, the final saw Russia play the Czech Republic. Petr Svoboda’s long shot, and a goaltending masterclass from Dominik Hasek, saw the Czechs win 1-0 and take gold.
In total, Yashin played 88 games for Russia at World Championships, Olympics and World Cups. He scored 30 goals and gave 27 assists.
The face of the KHL
The romance between Yashin and the Islanders didn’t work out for various reasons. In 2007, the club bought out the remainder of Alexei’s contract for a record $17.6 million.
At this time, Russian fans were starting to get used to players returning from overseas to finish their careers in the national championship. In 2001, Andrei Kovalenko returned, followed by Alexander Korolyuk in 2002. A year later came Valery Kamensky, German Titov and Dmitry Yushkevich. In 2004 the NHL lock-out brought almost every Russian star back home. However, it was still rare to see top-class players come back and play in Russia for extended periods. Yashin was one of the first who, having achieved a lot in the NHL, came back to Russia when he was still close to his best at the age of 33.
Before 2007, Yashin played in Russia twice. In 1995, during the dispute with Ottawa mentioned above, he came to play for CSKA. However, after four games he was banned from playing for Viktor Tikhonov’s team. During the 2004-2005 lockout he played the end of the season with Lokomotiv, defeated a star-studded Ak Bars in the first round of the playoffs and went on to win bronze. Yashin came back to Yaroslavl in 2007.
10.01.2009 Led Team Yashin onto the ice for the first KHL All-Star Game
26.03.2009 Played in the first Gagarin Cup final with Lokomotiv
Moved to SKA 29.05.2009
31.12.2010 Won the Spengler Cup with the Petersburg club
21.09.2011 Moved to CSKA
Played his final KHL game 03.03.2012
Announced his retirement and became GM of Russia’s women’s team 07.12.2012
Became assistant coach of the men’s national team 23.08.2013
Played his farewell game alongside Maxim Sushinsky 12.11.2013
04.02.2022 Inducted into the IIHF Hall of Fame
With Yashin, Lokomotiv got to within a game of winning the Russian Superleague. The team powered through the playoffs, defeating Lada (3-1), SKA (3-1) and Metallurg (3-0). In the final, the Railwaymen faced Salavat Yulaev, the regular season champ. It went to a game five decider in Ufa, which was tied 1-1 after the second period. However, in the final frame, three unanswered goals won it for the home team.
The following season saw the birth of the KHL. Yashin, alongside Alexei Morozov and Jaromir Jagr, was one of the biggest stars. Before the start of the season they appeared in promo clips, and these were shown throughout the entire campaign.
Alexei Yashin“I battled for medals back in the Soviet championship, where we had some real stars playing. Now I hope that the KHL will bring real masters of a European and World level.”
Yashin’s status was evident at the first KHL All-Star Games, which were played as Team Yashin against Team Jagr. In 2009 and 2010, this was a Russia vs the Rest of the World match-up; in 2011 it switched to Eastern Conference vs West. Team Yashin lost all three games, but these were events where the score was never the most important thing.
In the first KHL season Yashin’s Lokomotiv again reached the final. It was almost a repeat of the previous season: straightforward progress through the playoffs against Neftekhimik (3-1), Spartak (3-0) and Metallurg (4-1) before an evenly matched final series, this time against Ak Bars. The game seven decider was again tied after 40 minutes. But again, an unanswered third-period goal – this time scored by Morozov – cost Lokomotiv the cup.
In his three seasons with Yaroslavl, Yashin won three medals. Twice, Alexei led the team in regular season scoring (the other time, in 2005, he played just 10 games). He was the top playoff scorer in all three seasons.
In 2009, Yashin joined SKA and played on a line with Maxim Sushinsky and Petr Cajanek. Together they scored 66 goals in the regular season, and Yashin had 64 points, his best ever haul in the Russian championship. The following season was less successful and the line was broken up. Despite its stellar offense, SKA could not secure a long-awaited trophy: in 2010, the team crashed out in the first round of the playoffs, in 2011 it got no further than the second. In the end, SKA decided not to extend its contracts with any of its three big-name forwards.
The fourth KHL season was already underway before we learned of Yashin’s next move. At the end of September it was announced that he would join CSKA. At the time, the Muscovites were not a serious title contender and they dropped out of the playoffs in the first round against SKA. Once again, Yashin’s career was at a pause. In Nov. 2012, he told Izvestiya that he had not even thought about retirement. However, he never played an official game again.
Factfile
Born Nov. 5 1973 in Sverdlovsk (Yekaterinburg)
Career: 1989-1990 – Luch (Sverdlovsk), 1990-1991 – Avtomobilist, 1993-1993 – Dynamo Moscow, 1993-2001 – Ottawa (NHL), 1995, 2011-2012 – CSKA, 2001-2007 – Islanders (NHL), 2005, 2007-2009 – Lokomotiv, 2009-2011 – SKA.
Honors: World Champion (1993), bronze medallist (2005); Olympic silver (1998) and bronze (2002) medallist; Russian champion (1992, 1993), silver medallist (2008, 2009), bronze medallist (2005); World Junior champion (1992).
