Alexei Morozov

Alexei Alekseyevich Morozov (Алексей Алексе́евич Морозов; born 16 February 1977) is the president of the Kontinental Hockey League and a Russian former professional ice hockey player.

He played professional hockey with the Pittsburgh Penguins in the National Hockey League (NHL) and in the Kontinental Hockey League (KHL) with Ak Bars Kazan and CSKA Moscow.

As a youth, Morozov played in the 1991 Quebec International Pee-Wee Hockey Tournament with a minor ice hockey team from Moscow.

Morozov was drafted in the first round, 24th overall, by the Pittsburgh Penguins in the 1995 NHL Entry Draft.

After being drafted, he remained in Russia and did not join the Penguins until the 1997–98 NHL season.

Morozov began his career much like Pittsburgh legend Mario Lemieux, scoring on his first shot on his first shift of his first game as a Penguin.

He played seven seasons for the Penguins, totaling 451 games, 84 goals, and 219 points.

In his seven-year NHL career, Morozov earned the nickname The Devil Killer for his notorious success against the New Jersey Devils.

In fact, New Jersey goaltender Martin Brodeur in an interview before a Penguins/Devils game on Fox Sports Net jokingly stated that he had nightmares of Morozov each night before his club would play the Penguins.

Brodeur also stated in an interview with ESPN's Dan Patrick that Morozov is the player that he would not like to see coming in on him on a breakaway adding " The kid's got probably over 25 percent of his career goals on me. It's unbelievable."

when asked to explain Morozov's success against him Brodeur added " I don't know. If you figure it out, please tell me. When he shoots the puck, I never catch it really clean. When he's going to make a pass, I think he's shooting. When he's shooting, I think he's making a pass. The guy's in my kitchen. He's in my head. I can't get rid of him."

He also won an Olympic Silver Medal on the 1998 Russian Olympic Team during his rookie year with the Penguins.

Despite these successes, Morozov never fully developed into the player he had the potential to be as he played a majority of his first few seasons in the NHL on the third and fourth lines due to the tremendous depth of a talent laden Penguins team that included stars such as Mario Lemieux, Jaromír Jágr, Alexei Kovalev, Martin Straka and Robert Lang among others.

He finally got his chance on the starting line during the 2002–03 season and the KLM line of Kovalev, Lemieux and Morozov led the Penguins to a top three record in the conference the first third of the season before being dismantled by injuries and trades.

After bursting onto the scene with 25 points in 27 games, Morozov suffered a fractured wrist by a crushing hit that ended his season and Lemieux became bogged down by back problems which forced him to call it a year.

Kovalev was later traded at the NHL trade deadline to the New York Rangers.

The next season saw Morozov off to a slow start, mainly due to injury and the lack of talent on a young Penguins team.

However, down the stretch of the 2003–04 season, Morozov was instrumental to the Penguins late season success, leading the team with five game-winning goals, including two in the final three games of the season as well as netting 20 points in the final 15 games.

He would also finish the season leading all Penguins forwards in points.

During the 2004–05 NHL lockout, Morozov went back to Russia to hone his skills and play for the Ak Bars Kazan of the Russian Superleague (RSL), for whom he has played since.

He would see significant ice-time on a talent laden Ak-Bars team that included NHL stars such as Vincent Lecavalier, Dany Heatley, Ilya Kovalchuk, Brad Richards and Nik Antropov.

Despite these marquee NHL names, it would be Morozov who would go on to lead the club in scoring with 46 points.

With the NHL's future still up in the air, Morozov signed a one-year contract with Kazan in hopes to build upon his previous season's success.

As they built on their chemistry from the 2004–05 season that eventually led to dominance during the 2005–06 season, the Kazan line of Sergei Zinovjev, Danis Zaripov, and Morozov himself came to be known throughout the world as the ZZM Line.

The 2005–06 season proved a great one for Morozov, where he finished the regular season leading the league in goals (23) and being second in points (49) after Sergei Mozyakin (52) while leading Ak Bars to its first championship win in nearly ten years.

He was instrumental in his team's long playoff run, amassing 26 points (13 goals, 13 assists) in just 13 games en route to Playoff MVP.

He was also qualified for six other RSL league awards, two of which he won.

Although they would only see one more full season together after 2005–06 due to injuries, the ZZM Line has been widely regarded as the best European line produced since the Cold War Era for their championship style of play leading Ak-Bars to one RSL championship, one KHL championship, one European Cup Championship, and Team Russia to two Gold Medal World Championships.

The off-season choice of whether to remain in the RSL or return to the NHL was a very difficult one for Morozov, as he wanted to join his compatriots Evgeni Malkin and Alexander Semin in the NHL but he also had a great relationship and close ties with Ak Bars.

However, in the end, Morozov chose to sign an undisclosed contract to stay with his Russian club in hopes of winning back-to-back championships.

When the regular season ended, Morozov led the league and established new Super League record in points (83) as Ak Bars Kazan had a league leading 119 points and well on the way to a second straight championship.

He became the first and only player in the history of the RSL to top the eighty points in a season and his 83 points broke the old record of 79 held by Sergei Makarov.

This is a record that will stand the test of time as in just two more years the RSL would be replaced by a greater league spanning four countries.

After quickly dispatching of Metallurg Novokuznetsk in the opening round in three games, Ak Bars then defeated Khimik Moscow Oblast and CSKA Moscow in four games each to advance to the finals to face Metallurg Magnitogorsk.

In a final decisive game five, Ak Bars would come up short losing the final game by the score of 2–1.

Despite not matching his stellar numbers of the 2005–06 season, Morozov finished the playoffs with a league leading 15 assists in 14 games.

During the 2006 RSL playoff run, the ZZM Line amassed 51 points in just 13 games.

He is the former captain of the Russian national team, having held the post from 2007 to 2011, with the team winning 2 gold, 1 silver (missed tournament due to injury, Kovalchuk captained) and 1 bronze medal at the World Championships during this time.

During the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) European Championship Cup (ECC) in January 2007, Morozov earned the titles of best forward and MVP as he led Ak Bars to the championship by defeating the SM-liiga club HPK 6–0, reaffirming Russian dominance at the tournament.

He was succeeded, as national team captain, by his Ak Bars team mate Ilya Nikulin, in 2012.