In the late 1970s, a defenseman named Valery Rakov joined Khimik Voskresensk, a club in the top flight of the Soviet League. He played alongside a five-foot-nine center named Igor Larionov, who was barely three years into a professional career that ended with a Hall of Fame induction. Nearly forty years later, Rakov’s nephew Vasily Podkolzin would debut alongside Pavel Datsyuk and Nikita Gusev, becoming the first 21st century-born player to play in the KHL.