MOSCOW -- New York Islanders forward Alexei Yashin has become the latest leading National Hockey League player to move to Russia, joining Lokomotiv Yaroslavl.
"Lokomotiv have signed Alexei Yashin until the end of the
2004-05 season," the Russian Superleague club said on their
Web site on Monday.
With the NHL season, disrupted by the labour dispute between
the team owners and players, expected to be scrapped after the
weekend deadline passed without a new collective bargaining
agreement, more players are moving to Europe to find work.
Russia has benefited the most as many leading clubs are
willing to pay million-dollar salaries to their imports.
Last week, Superleague rivals Ak Bars Kazan signed Atlanta Thrashers' Canadian forward Dany Heatley, who was voted NHL's Rookie of the Year in 2002.
Ak Bars, Russia's wealthiest club with a reported annual
budget of almost $60 million, already has NHL's joint top scorer
last year Ilya Kovalchuk and three members of the Stanley Cup
champions Tampa Bay Lightning: goaltender Nikolai Khabibulin and
forwards Vincent Lecavalier and Brad Richards.
Czech forward Jaromir Jagr, considered by many the NHL's
best player, joined Russian champions Avangard Omsk, which is sponsored in part by Roman Abramovich, the billionaire owner of
the English Premier League soccer club Chelsea, in November.
Monday is Superleague's last day to sign new players and
Lokomotiv, who won back-to-back Russian league titles in 2002
and 2003 before slumping to seventh place last year, wanted to
strengthen its squad ahead of next month's playoffs.
Yashin, 31, played for Dynamo Moscow before signing with the
NHL's Ottawa Senators in 1993. That year he also helped Russia
win the world championship, the last time it lifted the title.
Lokomotiv is in sixth place, 20 points behind leader Dynamo Moscow, in the 16-team league, with eight clubs making
the playoffs.