Alexei Yashin

Alexei Valeryevich Yashin (Алексей Валерьевич Яшин; born 5 November 1973) is a Russian former professional ice hockey centre who played 12 seasons in the National Hockey League (NHL) for the Ottawa Senators and New York Islanders, serving as captain of both teams.

He also played nine seasons in the Russian Superleague (RSL) and Kontinental Hockey League (KHL) for Dynamo Moscow, CSKA Moscow, Lokomotiv Yaroslavl and SKA Saint Petersburg.

Yashin received his initial fame for being the first draft pick in the history of the expansion Ottawa Senators (second overall in the 1992 NHL Entry Draft).

After remaining in Russia for the 1992–93 season with Dynamo Moscow, Yashin arrived in Ottawa for the 1993–94 NHL season, along with Ottawa's other highly touted young draft selection, Alexandre Daigle.

Yashin soon eclipsed Daigle as the team's brightest young star, scoring 79 points in his rookie season and earning a nomination for the Calder Memorial Trophy.

Senators' management initially viewed Daigle, who had been selected first overall in the 1993 NHL Entry Draft, as the franchise's cornerstone player.

While they hesitated in offering Yashin a five-year, $4 million contract, they signed Daigle to one of the largest rookie contracts in history and touted him over Yashin for the Calder Memorial Trophy at the conclusion of the 1993–94 season.

Several nasty contract disputes later developed between Yashin and the team, beginning when Yashin refused to honour his contract at the onset of the 1995–96 season, unless the terms were renegotiated to make him the team's highest-paid player.

Some commentators have sympathized with Yashin's position in the initial disputes, as Daigle had struggled to live up to his billing while Yashin's offensive numbers exceeded Daigle's in every season they played together on the Senators, yet the team inexplicably paid Daigle a higher salary.

Subsequent seasons saw him emerge as a star player in the NHL, helping Ottawa make the Stanley Cup playoffs for the first time in 1997.

In the 1998 playoffs, he scored a key overtime goal against the New Jersey Devils that helped the Senators win their first ever playoff series.

Yashin was eventually named team captain of the Senators, and the pinnacle of his career came in the 1998–99 season when he scored 94 points.

At the conclusion of the season, Yashin was runner-up for the Hart Memorial Trophy for the NHL's most valuable player, and named an NHL Second Team All-Star.

In 1998, Yashin initially pledged to give $1 million to the National Arts Centre (NAC) in Ottawa, the Centre's largest ever donation.

The Senators had earlier collaborated with the NAC to produce the 1998–99 season program titled "Symphony on Ice", which featured Senators head coach Jacques Martin on the front cover wearing a tuxedo and waving a conductor's baton, while NAC music director Pinchas Zukerman was shown in the Senators' locker room with a #00 Senators jersey.

When the NAC learned that one of the conditions of this donation was for them to pay Yashin's parents $425,000 in consulting fees for "loosely defined" services, they balked and Yashin cancelled the donation.

The failed arrangement was a public relations disaster for Yashin and his family, and served to further damage Yashin's already strained relationship with the Ottawa public.

Yashin's relationship with the Senators reached a new low after the 1998–99 season.

He refused to honour the final year of his contract and demanded a pay raise (he would have earned $3.6 million that year, compared to other star centremen in the NHL such as Steve Yzerman and Joe Sakic, who each made $6–7 million).

When the Senators refused, Yashin demanded a trade on the advice of his agent, Mark Gandler.

This was the third time that Yashin demanded a new contract during his five years with the team.

The Senators refused to trade Yashin, instead stripping him of his captaincy and issuing it to Daniel Alfredsson.

Yashin's regular season success did not carry over into the 1999 playoffs, and the Senators were swept in the first round by the Buffalo Sabres.

Off the ice, Yashin's time in Ottawa was tumultuous.

When Yashin still refused to report, the Senators suspended him for the remainder of the 1999–2000 season on 10 November, with the full support of the NHL.

Yashin attempted to sign with a team in Switzerland, but the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) suspended him from playing internationally until the dispute was resolved.

After the season, an NHL arbitrator refused to grant Yashin the free agent status he claimed to have earned, instead tolling his contract for another season on the grounds that Yashin owed the Senators the final year of his contract if he ever returned to the NHL.

In contrast to earlier contract disputes where many sympathized with his situation, the latest holdout caused many journalists and Senators' fans to sour on him.

Yashin returned to the Senators for the 2000–01 season.

Despite being jeered by the crowd in every NHL arena, including Ottawa, Yashin had a solid regular season offensively.

The Senators won the Northeast Division and made the playoffs as the second seed in the Eastern Conference.

They were paired against the seventh-seeded Toronto Maple Leafs.

Yashin had a poor series and did not attend the final team meeting, held after the Senators' early playoff exit.

On draft day, 2001, Yashin was sent to the New York Islanders in exchange for defenceman Zdeno Chára, forward Bill Muckalt and the second overall draft selection, which the Senators used to draft highly touted centre Jason Spezza.

Islanders' general manager Mike Milbury promptly re-signed Yashin to an enormous ten-year, $87.5 million contract.

While he helped his new team make the playoffs for the first time in eight years in 2001–02, the Islanders were still unable to advance beyond the first round.

The Isles lost to the Toronto Maple Leafs in a hard-fought seven game series in 2001–02 and then lost in five games to Ottawa in 2002–03 and the eventual champion Tampa Bay Lightning in 2003–04.

Although his contract was reduced by 24% due to the new NHL Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) signed in 2005, Yashin was widely considered to be grossly overpaid and virtually untradeable.

After joining the Islanders, Yashin's point production declined.

He was inducted into the IIHF Hall of Fame in 2020.