Alexander Mogilny

He scored his 50th goal in his 46th game that year, but it did not count as an official 50 goals in 50 games record as it occurred during the team's 53rd game.

Mogilny finished the season with seven hat-tricks including three in four games, two four-goal games and a stretch where he scored 23 goals in 13 games.

Alexander Gennadevich Mogilny (Александр Геннадиевич Могильный; born February 18, 1969) is a Russian former professional ice hockey player and the current president of Amur Khabarovsk of the Kontinental Hockey League (KHL).

He was the first National Hockey League (NHL) draftee to defect from the Soviet Union in order to play in North America.

During his NHL career, Mogilny played for the Buffalo Sabres, Vancouver Canucks, Toronto Maple Leafs and New Jersey Devils.

In 1986, Mogilny was made a full-time player of CSKA Moscow.

He finished his first year with 15 goals and 16 points in 28 games.

At only 17 years old, Mogilny and Sergei Fedorov were the youngest members on the team.

Still, team officials anticipated that the duo, along with the looming arrival of Pavel Bure, would succeed the top line of Vladimir Krutov, Igor Larionov and Sergei Makarov.

Mogilny's first major appearance for the Soviet Union on the international stage was at the 1987 World Junior Ice Hockey Championships.

He finished the tournament with 3 goals and 2 assists in 6 games.

However, his team was ejected from the tournament during its last game as a result of the brawl between the Soviet Union players and Team Canada known as the "Punch-up in Piestany".

The International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) suspended all the players involved in that game from competing in international events for 18 months.

The penalty was eventually reduced to six months, which allowed Mogilny to compete in the 1988 World Junior Ice Hockey Championships.

He finished the tournament with 9 goals and 18 points in 7 games en route to a silver medal finish and winning the Top Forward award.

He also played with the senior team at the 1988 Winter Olympics, where he won a gold medal as the team's youngest player.

Despite his success with the Soviet National team, and his growing importance on CSKA Moscow, Mogilny yearned for a life in the NHL and decided to join the Buffalo Sabres, the NHL team that had drafted him 89th overall in the 1988 NHL Entry Draft.

The next year, at the 1989 World Junior Championships, he served as team captain and was a part of the commanding Bure-Fedorov-Mogilny line which led their team to a gold medal.

Mogilny finished that tournament with 7 goals and 12 points in 7 games.

He went on to win his first World Championships when the Soviet Union won the 1989 World Ice Hockey Championships.

He boarded a plane in Stockholm at the conclusion of the 1989 World Championships and defected to North America.

Prior to the start of his rookie season, Mogilny was given the number 89 by team management in recognition of both the year he arrived and his place in the draft.

He subsequently wore #89 for his entire playing career.

He made his NHL debut on October 5, 1989 against the Québec Nordiques during the 1989–90 season and scored his first NHL goal just 20 seconds into his first shift at age 20.

(Coincidentally, the Sabres were celebrating their 20th season in the NHL.) After the perfect start to his new life, the rest of Mogilny's first season was middling.

He was considered by some to be one of the best players outside the NHL prior to his defection, but it took time for him to adjust to a new country and culture.

He finished his first NHL season with 43 points in 65 games and improved to 30 goals and 64 points during his sophomore season.

He continued his ascension with 39 goals and 84 points in only 67 games the next year and broke out as an NHL superstar in his fourth season.

On December 21, 1991, in a game against the Toronto Maple Leafs, Mogilny scored five seconds into the game to tie the NHL record for fastest goal scored to start a game.

In the 1991–92 season, the Buffalo Sabres acquired future captain Pat LaFontaine from the New York Islanders.

Lafontaine developed an instant chemistry playing with Mogilny and two players elevated their games to new heights by maximizing their speed and skill.

He tied for the NHL lead in goals in the 1992–93 season with 76, and became a member of the Triple Gold Club by winning the Stanley Cup in 2000 with New Jersey.

Growing up in the Soviet Union, Mogilny was recruited at a young age to join CSKA Moscow, commonly referred to as the "Red Army Team".

As the CSKA organization was a functioning division of the Soviet Army, it was able to draft the best young hockey players in the Soviet Union onto the team.

The 1992–93 season was a banner year for Mogilny, as he scored an astonishing 76 goals and 127 points in 77 games.

His 76 goals tied Finnish rookie Teemu Selänne for the NHL goal-scoring lead that year, which was the fifth-highest season goal total in NHL history and the first time that two players developed outside North America led the NHL in goals.

In the 1993 playoffs, he played a critical role for the Sabres in the first round, with 6 goals in 4 games, which helped his team sweep the Boston Bruins in the first round.

In the second round, the Sabres were matched with the Montreal Canadiens, who had just finished a 100-point regular season.

After scoring a goal and an assist in the series opener, Mogilny broke his leg during a collision in game 3 and was unable to return for the rest of the series.

Mogilny's 76 goals and 127 points set the highest season totals ever for a Russian NHL player, a record which held until Nikita Kucherov scored 128 points in the 2018-19 NHL season, and the highest goal totals in Buffalo Sabres franchise history.