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 Back from Russia with love

Thursday, February 21, 2008

By Kevin Wey

When Konstantin Pushkarev left the Iowa Stars on November 7 to play for CSKA Moscow of the Russian Super League, nobody expected to see the talented winger in Des Moines again.  However, by the end of January the 21-year-old had led Iowa in scoring for the month and looked unlikely to return to Russia for any reason any time soon other than visiting family.

When Pushkarev left to play for CSKA just over a month into the 2007-08 AHL season, he was reported to be leaving to play on a $1 million contract, nearly twice the $534,333 he’d be due to make if he were playing with Dallas the entire season, and far more than the $70,000 he earns with Iowa on his two-way, three-year, entry level contract he signed April 28, 2005, negotiated while he was still in the Los Angeles Kings organization.  The opportunity with CSKA was too good to pass up, both financially and for family reasons, as Pushkarev’s family had moved from his native Kazakhstan to the Moscow area in recent years.  But, call it fate or what you will, things didn’t work out for Pushkarev in Russia and he returned to Iowa.

In a post-game interview Dec. 31, his first game back from Russia and a 5-4 victory over the Houston Aeros in which he tallied an assist, Pushkarev said of his short stay in Russia, “I played four games and got injured, and after that they fired me, said, ‘You’re a bull---- player.”

A little over a month later in an extended post-game interview Feb. 2, a more tempered Pushkarev explained that he had hurt his shoulder on a road trip with CSKA, that an ultrasound discovered a ripped tendon, and that the team had dealt with a similar situation with a different player who tried to return from the injury too early and re-injured the shoulder and was out the rest of the season, leaving CSKA out of that money.  Pushkarev had failed to produce as CSKA had expected in his four games, too, but he didn’t feel he received a fair shot.

“I didn’t play power play or penalty kill, so I played only five-on-five, so five or seven minutes a game,” Pushkarev said. “Try to score goals with that much ice time. 

“You focus on making mistakes.  When I get here (Iowa), I get some ice time and I get some points.”   

He sure did.  Pushkarev scored 6 goals and 4 assists in the month of January for the Iowa Stars, nearly a fourth of the 26 goals the I-Stars scored in 12 games for the month.  Aside from Marius Holtet, who had 5 goals for the month, no other Iowa Star player had more than 2 goals in January, so Pushkarev’s return proved to be most helpful.   

It also proved to be timely, as rookie winger James Neal had suffered a knee injury Dec. 30 in Peoria against the Rivermen and was out the entire month of January, and the first weekend of February.  The I-Stars were also without rookie forwards Aaron Gagnon and Tom Wandell when Pushkarev returned, due to a shoulder and rib cage injury respectively.  Neither of them returned until mid-January, after stints with the team’s ECHL affiliate Idaho Steelheads.  Inserted into the second line Dec. 31 with Marty Sertich and B.J. Crombeen, and Mark Bomersback rotating in, Pushkarev immediately felt wanted again. 

“I knew here people trusted in me,” Pushkarev said Dec. 31. “In Iowa, they believe in me and they give me options to get better and better every single day.” 

The comments of Iowa Stars Head Coach Dave Allison after the Dec. 31 game confirmed Pushkarev’s belief in his team’s belief in him. 

“It’s great to have him back,” Allison said. “I don’t think anybody in the world could condemn him for doing what he did. 

“He didn’t quit on us.  He didn’t do anything.  He went and made a financial decision that there’s nobody in the world that wouldn’t have done.” 

When asked in that same Dec. 31 post-game interview what led to Pushkarev returning to North America, he replied, “It was his decision to pursue a career in the National Hockey League.” 

It’s been Pushkarev’s dream to play in the NHL for some time.  Born February 12, 1985, Pushkarev grew up in Ust-Kamenogorsk, a city of over 300,000 people in the far eastern part of Kazakhstan, the ninth largest country in the world, the largest landlocked nation in the world, and a part of the former Soviet Union.  Ust-Kamengorsk, the capital of the East Kazakhstan Province, which borders both Russia and China and is also close to Mongolia, became a major mining and metallurgical center during the Soviet period.  It also became one of the major hockey hubs of the Soviet Union.  

“In that city it’s only one sport, kind of like ‘Little Canada,’” Pushkarev said of Ust-Kamenogorsk. “It used to be every guy, like, dream to be a hockey player. 

“The guys played outside and they want to be like Boris Alexandrov and like some other names that were pretty big there.” 

Alexandrov was a member of the Soviet Union’s 1976 Olympic hockey team (which won a fourth straight gold medal at the Innsbruck Winter Olympics) and other Soviet national teams in the mid 70’s, and who was a top player in the Russian Super League, first for CSKA Moscow and later for the rival Spartak Moscow hockey club.  In the 80’s, Alexandrov returned to Kazakhstan, then only a state within the Soviet Union, to play for Kazzinc-Torpedo, where he put up huge offensive totals in the Vyshaya Liga, Russia’s second highest league.  Alexandrov was also revered in his homeland for serving as the head coach for Team Kazakhstan at the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan.  Tragically, Alexandrov died in a car crash in 2001 at the young age of 46, leaving Kazakstan without their hero, but his son Viktor carries on the family tradition of hockey excellence and is one of the top scorers of the Russian Super League this season, and also a 2004 third round draft pick of the St. Louis Blues.  Viktor, ten months Konstantin’s junior, also skated with Pushkarev on Team Kazakhstan in the 2002 Division I U18 World Championships in Slovenia. 

It was Pushkarev’s own exploits with Kazzinc-Torpedo’s second team and Team Kazakhstan that helped put him on the hockey map.  Pushkarev put up 1 goal and 3 assists in 4 games to help Kazakhstan win the gold at the 2002 Division I U18s in Slovenia that March, beating host nation Slovenia 5-2 in the final game.   

During the 2002-03 season, Pushkarev played for Kazzinc-Torpedo’s second team (Kazzinc-Torpedo 2) in Kazakhstan’s First League and scored a respectable 20 goals and 15 assists in 50 games and also played four games for Kazzinc-Torpedo in the Vyshaya Liga.  He was also named to Kazakhstan’s U20 team for the 2003 Division I World Junior Championships in Almaty, Kazakhstan, where the 17-year-old Pushkarev scored a goal and an assist in 5 games en route to a third-place finish for Kazakhstan behind Ukraine and Japan.  The Kazakhstani also represented his country at the 2003 U18 World Championships in Yaroslavl, Russia, in April of that year, and his stock soared significantly after that event. 

The 18-year-old Pushkarev broke out with 9 goals and 1 assist in 6 games, tying him with future NHL superstar Alexander Ovechkin in goals scored for the tournament and placing him sixth in tournament scoring, even though Kazakhstan finished last, including a 13-2 blowout to Switzerland and an 8-1 drubbing to Canada.  Little did Pushkarev know at the time that he would become teammates with one of Team Canada’s players four years later, one B.J. Crombeen.   

When the 2003 NHL Entry Draft rolled around June 21 and 22 in Nashville, Pushkarev’s named was called by the Los Angeles Kings in the second round with the 44^th pick overall.  Pushkarev was actually surprised the Kings took him, as he expected to go to one of two other clubs. 

“I had like three meetings with the Detroit Red Wings, they really wanted me, and Phoenix, they wanted to draft me in the first round, that’s what I heard,” Pushkarev recalled. “But, they only had picks in the second and third round, like late second (Detroit), and middle third (Phoenix), so they try to trade something to get in the first round, that’s what they told me, but it was a really strong draft.” 

Now NHL property of the Kings, Pushkarev left home the next season to play in Omsk, Russia, north on the Irtysh River from Ust-Kamenogorsk, for Avangard Omsk in the Russian Super League, a significant step up in his hockey career.  His first season away from home wasn’t the easiest, though. 

“There was a coach (Sergei Gersonsky) who called me, he was from my city, he was the head coach (of Omsk) and he told me I was going to play, but after, like, 15 games, the team didn’t do well, and they just fired him,” Pushkarev said of the early 2003-04 season.  “I started to play, they called me up form the minor team, I played like 3 games, get 2 points, start doing really well, start to get that feeling, and I play like 5 or 6 games and they fired him, so the new coach came and he sent me down right away, like all the young guys, right away, down.”

The new coach, Valeri Belousov, went on to lead Avangard to the Russian Super League championships and would also go on to coach the Russian national team.  After Belousov sent Pushkarev down to Avangard DVD, Omsk’s team in the Russian First League (the third highest league in Russia), Pushkarev suffered a knee injury Dec. 10, 2003 that required surgery and kept him out for about eight weeks and forced him to miss the 2004 Division I, Group A, World Junior Championship in Berlin for Team Kazakhstan. During 2003-04, Pushkarev scored 1 goal in 5 games for Avangard in Super League regular season action (not counting exhibition games) and 20 goals and 15 assists in 48 games for Avangard VDV.   

For 2004-05, Pushkarev expected to make a push (pardon the pun) to play for Avangard’s Super League team, and he traveled with the team to Bulgaria in July to do off-ice training twice a day and to Finland later in the summer to skate once a day and off-ice twice day, and then back to Russia to work out up to four times a day, twice on the ice and twice off the ice.  He was up with Avangard’s top team in early September, but as NHL players started to arrive in Russia during the NHL lockout, young players like Pushkarev lost their ice time.  As September wore on, the Los Angeles Kings and Pushkarev’s agent, J.P. Barry of IMG, negotiated terms with Avangard for Pushkarev’s release to play in North America, as Russia was not part of the NHL-IIHF Transfer Agreement that dictated such terms for the transfer of European prospects from other European countries to the NHL.  The Kings and IMG were able to negotiate Pushkarev’s release, and he was assigned to the Calgary Hitmen of the Western Hockey League. 

The Hitmen, a major junior team, had drafted Pushkarev that summer in the second round of the two-round CHL Import Draft with the 68^th overall pick.  General Manager/Head Coach Kelly Kisio, a former NHLer of 751 games played amongst the Detroit Red Wings, New York Rangers, San Jose Sharks, and Calgary Flames, did not know if Pushkarev would be playing in North America in while he was still eligible to play juniors, but he decided to take a chance that the Kazakhstani might be able to play for the Hitmen in 2004-05.  Pushkarev joined the team in late September and played his first game Sept. 29, 2004, a 4-3 victory over Lethbridge in which he was named the First Star of the Game for scoring a goal and an assist and fighting Hurricanes right winger Kris Versteeg (an NHL prospect himself), completing the “Gordie Howe Hat Trick.”   Six months later, at the conclusion of the WHL regular season, Pushkarev had 22 goals and 30 assists in 69 games, second in Hitmen scoring to one future Anaheim Mighty Duck Ryan Getzlaf, whom Pushkarev also played against at the 2003 U18 World Championships in the 8-1 loss to Canada.  Pushkarev also scored 2 goals and 5 assists in 12 playoff games for the Hitmen.  Nearly three years later, Pushkarev still looks back on his first year in North America as his favorite. 

“That was probably my best time in North America,” Pushkarev reminisced. “I like Canada a lot.” 

Although media reports at the time said that Kisio and Associate Coach Dean Evason (a former NHLer with 803 games played amongst the Washington Capitals, Hartford Whalers, San Jose Sharks, Dallas Stars, and Calgary Flames) were trying to get Pushkarev to adjust his game, Pushkarev’s recollection indicates it only partially sunk in. 

“The coaches were good guys,” Pushkarev said of Kisio and Evason. “They kind of let me do what I wanted to do.” 

For the 2005-06 season, Pushkarev moved to the Los Angeles Kings’ AHL affiliate Manchester Monarchs.  He had played fairly well the entire season, and Pushkarev said Monarchs Head Coach Jim Hughes had suggested to the Kings to call him up, but it wasn’t until Los Angeles Kings Head Coach Andy Murray was fired on March 21, 2006, that Pushkarev got his first chance in the NHL.   

“When Murray was fired, I get a call back on the same night,” Pushkarev recalled. “We were sitting in the bar, drinking beer, I think it was like 1:00 a.m., and they called me and they said, I thought it was a joke, somebody joking, it was like 1:00 a.m. and we’re having beer and fun right after the game.” 

Pushkarev was officially recalled March 26, after Manchester’s March 25 game against the Providence Bruins, made his way to Vancouver to meet the Kings there for their game against the Canucks March 27, and played his lone NHL game of the season.  It was the realization of a dream.  

“I’m, all the time, when I played in hometown, I just think about that (playing in the NHL),” Pushkarev said.  “I didn’t think I was going to get that close, I just said, ‘Yeah, NHL, you know, it’s great to be there, all yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.’” 

“When I played that first game, I was like, ‘Holy s---, I’m here!” 

Pushkarev received 9:33 of ice time that night and assisted on a goal by Mark Parrish in the second period of the Kings’ 7-4 loss to Vancouver that night and was sent back down to Manchester March 31.  Still, a point in one’s first NHL game is always a good thing.  Also, little did Pushkarev know at the time that one of his Vancouver opponents that night would be a teammate only 17 months later, one Nolan Baumgartner. 

The 20-year-old Pushkarev ended 2005-06 with 19 goals and 19 assists in 77 games for Manchester during the regular season and 1 goal and 1 assist in 7 playoff games, as the Monarchs were eliminated in the first round by the Hartford Wolf Pack. 

The 2006-07 season brought a new head coach to Los Angeles, former Vancouver Canucks Head Coach Marc Crawford, but Pushkarev started the season in Manchester again.  The Monarchs, too, had a new head coach in Mark Morris.  Pushkarev’s style of play didn’t mesh well with Morris. 

“He just wasn’t right for the way how I played, so I didn’t get a lot of ice time,” Pushkarev said. “That was a really hard time for me.” 

“I was the second scorer on the team, I had, like, 9 points in 11 games, but all of them, like, assists, and he said, ‘You have to score goals,” Pushkarev recalled. “I said, ‘Yeah, I would like to score goals.’ 

“So, afterward, we kind of started finding a bit.  He put me on the third, fourth line.  I just called to my agent and told him ‘look for trades.’” 

Actually, Pushkarev had 7 assists in his first 10 games, and after 4 goals and 4 assists in 15 games in December (giving him 4 goals and 11 assists in 29 games for the season) he was recalled by Los Angeles on Jan. 6, 2007.  The way his Los Angeles teammates treated him left an impression. 

“When you step in the locker room, they show you your spot, where you sit in, and treat you nice,” Pushkarev recalled of the Kings’ hospitality. “It was unreal.” 

It’s something Pushkarev now looks to pass forward. 

“That was a good lesson to me, the veterans taking care of the young guys.” 

Pushkarev was briefly sent down to Manchester for two games Jan. 21 and 24 and was recalled by Los Angeles again January 28.  He played 16 games for the Kings in two stints, scoring 2 goals and 2 assists, before being re-assigned back to Manchester Feb. 17.  The hockey was great, but the camaraderie of the team was perhaps most memorable, especially one particular future Hall of Famer. 

“That (the camaraderie) was real enjoyable, you know, going to restaurants and talking, telling stores, and there also was Luc Robitaille, he was kind of team guy around, never shut up, like, all the time telling stories,” Pushkarev said. “It was so nice. 

“That was a really good time.” 

After four games with Manchester, he learned that the trade wish he had lodged with his agent earlier in the season had come true.  On February 27, he was traded with Kings defenseman Mattias Norstrom, a third round selection in the 2007 NHL Entry Draft, and a fourth round selection in the 2007 NHL Entry Draft, to the Dallas Stars in return for defenseman Jaroslav Modry, prospect defenseman Johan Fransson, a first round pick in the 2008 NHL Entry Draft, a second round pick in the 2007 NHL Entry Draft, and a third round pick in the 2007 NHL Entry Draft.  Pushkarev received the word right before Manchester’s Feb. 27 game against the Norfolk Admirals. 

“So, we have to play, and it happened right before the game,” Pushkarev recalled. “I got the pre-game nap, put my cell phone on the silent version, and afterward I looked at the screen and saw two missed calls from the Los Angeles area and they were February 27, so I understand that I was traded. 

“I get to the rink, they told me where I go, so I pack the stuff and the next morning I left to Des Moines.” 

Pushkarev played his first game for the I-Stars March 1 against the Peoria Rivermen at Wells Fargo Arena and finished out the regular season with 2 goals and 5 assists in 15 games, giving him 6 goals and 16 assists in 60 AHL games for 2006-07.  He also scored 1 goal and 4 assists in 12 playoff games for Iowa, as Iowa was eliminated by the Chicago Wolves in the West Division Finals of the 2007 Calder Cup Playoffs. 

The 2007-08 season brought mixed beginnings for Pushkarev.  He was an early send-down to Iowa on Sept. 22, but had 1 goal and 4 assists in his first 6 games.  In that sixth game, October 19 against the Milwaukee Admirals, Pushkarev suffered a broken finger from a slash.  He missed only three games and returned to the Iowa line-up Oct. 27 against Lake Erie and played Oct. 30 against Milwaukee.  Then, he was a mysterious scratch on Nov. 6 against Peoria, and the next day it became known that he had left to play for CSKA of the Russian Super League.

As documented, things didn’t work out with CSKA, and, according to Pushkarev, he received some interest afterward from other teams in the Russian Super League, HK Dmitrov (a team in the Vyshaya Liga located in the Moscow area), Ekaterinburg (a team in the Vyshaya Liga located in the city of the same name), and all three Vyshaya Liga teams in Kazakhstan: Kazzinc-Torpedo, Barys Astana (located in Astana, the capital of Kazakhstan), and Kazakhmys Saptaev (located in Karaganda).  But Pushkarev decided to get back on the NHL path.

“There was still good money (in Russia), but it’s hard to improve and, for myself, it’s going to be better to get back and keep improving and maybe someday make the NHL,” Pushkarev said in the Dec. 31 interview. 

The youth and competition of the American Hockey League, the direct feeder to the NHL, also attracted Pushkarev to come back. 

“Here, there are the younger guys who want to improve, who want to play in the NHL, so they’re battling hard every single day, they never get a day off,” Pushkarev said. 

North American hockey also, perhaps ironically, fits Pushkarev’s style more than that sometimes played in Russia, where players will regroup and hold on to the puck for long periods of time. 

“Sometimes they try and get to the blue line, curl back, look for something, go a second time, and the other four guys don’t really do anything,” Pushkarev said. “When I was in Moscow, some players played like that, and it wasn’t interesting, because they kind of, like, standed still and nobody give you a puck. 

“I like the puck.” 

That is apparent to any who watch Pushkarev during the games or even before the games.  With about 20 minutes until warm-ups, Pushkarev routinely comes to the bench in his Under Armor, a long pair of Oxysox, his shoes, and a black hat, and stickhandles and shoots pucks, getting a feel for the stick and the pucks.  He’ll scoop the puck with his stick a la Sidney Crosby, or Robin Figren, or Mike Legg (take your pick of whom has made the move famous), as if he were using a lacrosse stick, and put on a short clinic for soft hands, almost as if he’s calibrating his hands for that night’s game.  After 8 to 10 minutes of that, he goes back to the locker room and is fully dressed in time for warm-ups. 

Pushkarev’s game isn’t the North-South, up-and-down-the-boards game that is considered classic North American hockey for wingers, but he does have a level of toughness many North American players do not have.  As of early February, his shoulder was not 100 percent from the injury he suffered in Russia and he plays with bumps and bruises every night.  In the early February interview with Pushkarev, he came into the interview room at Wells Fargo Arena with a number of ice packs, including a brand new bump on one of his wrists (which one will remain undisclosed) that appeared as if someone had inserted half a baseball on top of the bones of his forearm.  The night before, on February 1, he had tripped over the stick of Grand Rapids Griffins defenseman Jakub Kindl during the second period while both were racing for the puck and went into the boards face first and also slammed a knee into the boards, the top of the knee, where the shin pad can slip.  Imagine taking a hammer to the top of your knee cap while sitting in a chair.  He came out for the third period, skated at practice Saturday morning to test it, and skated that night.  The 6-foot-0, 172-pound Pushkarev may not be big, but he’s tough, and goes into tough areas. 

“He’s compact, he goes into those [tough] areas, and I think he’s a durable young man,” Allison said when asked whether Pushkarev’s size is a concern.   

Allison added, “He’s a tough sonnuva ‘b’ and I think that he can alleviate a lot of those hits by shooting the puck more and not being the hunted, but being the hunter more.”

This tendency was evident when he played in Calgary, was a point of contention between Pushkarev and Manchester, and is one of the last areas of Pushkarev’s game that the Iowa Stars are trying to modify. 

“I still believe that this is a kid that can be dynamic like, maybe not like an Ovechkin, but when he realizes that that’s the way to go, like play with that shoot-the-puck and no-prisoners attack, because he’s physical, he can shoot, and just sort of get that little fluff out of his game, that fancy-dancy stuff that is good at certain times, this kid can be a power forward,” Allison said of Pushkarev.  “He can truly be a power forward and just shoot the puck with more reckless abandon and instead of a little slash and dash, just more salt and pepper, baby, and just bring it to the net.” 

Iowa Stars Director of Hockey Operations Scott White said in an early February interview that he wanted to see Pushkarev take the puck to the net more “because I think he can beat most defensemen in our league.” 

“But he likes to make plays,” White added. “It’s hard, you don’t want to harness him too much.” 

It started to come along in January, when Pushkarev took 30 shots in 12 games to tie Janos Vas in shots on goal for the month (Vas, unfortunately, scored no goals in January).  The Stars want even more, though, and Pushkarev knows it.  He’s trying to find the balance White hinted at. 

“I’m not shooting the bad shots, like from the blue line or whatever, because I don’t have a good shot for that,” Pushkarev said.  

“If I get a chance, I shoot.  If I don’t, I will look for something, like a play.” 

If one talks to White, one gets the feeling that Pushkarev isn’t too far away from returning to the NHL, or sticking full time, depending on how one views his 17 career NHL games with Los Angeles, if he just makes a few subtle changes. 

“The effort’s always there, he’s just got to tidy up the details of his game in terms of looking to get to that next level on a full-time basis, because those are the areas that coaches will look at: minimizing turnovers at the offensive blue line, defensive blue line, and if there’s nothing, making sure the puck gets out, things like that,” White said of the offensive and defensive subtleties Pushkarev needs to continue to improve upon. 

If anyone had doubts that Pushkarev still had a potential future in the NHL, Pushkarev answered them in January.  He probably answered some of his own doubts, wondering if his seven weeks in Russia had killed his career. 

When Pushkarev was interviewed Dec. 31 and this correspondent spoke into his recorder to verbally mark the interview by saying, “Interview with Iowa Stars forward and Dallas Stars prospect Konstantin Pushkarev,” Pushkarev responded, “Used to be prospect.” 

Disagree.  Pushkarev is most certainly an NHL prospect again. 

Kevin Wey is a correspondent with McKeen’s Hockey that scouts/covers that American Hockey League and the United States Hockey League.