This is the way it’s supposed to work. NHL expansion teams are expected to pay their millions, dutifully take their beatings, make their draft picks, add water (frozen, in 85-foot-by-200-foot sheets), stand back, and–presto–watch the whole thing grow.
Of course, if it were all that easy, pigs would fly, Sharks would sing a cappella, and Lightning would strike thrice on the head of a Tampa teapot. Expansion 101 is more typically a course in death, destruction, and “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Chapter 11.”
But it’s blossoming big time for the Ottawa Senators, beyond anyone’s expectations this season, a growth spurt charged by Alexei Yashin, their 6-foot-3-inch Russian power forward/pivot, who has an appreciation for the arts (both cultural and martial), good Russian food (of which he can find little in Ottawa, other than Mom’s home cooking), and feasting on flatfooted defensemen (many of whom he’s cooked himself).
“He’s an individual who responds to pressure,” said Senators coach Jacques Martin, impressed by how Yashin’s game has escalated this season, his first as team captain. “There’s still room for him to improve, but I’ve got to be pleased by how he’s developed. If he doesn’t play well, this team’s not where it is right now.”
Prior to Thursday night’s 2-0 win over the injured and playoff-desperate Bruins, the 25-year-old Yashin held his customary spot as the Senators’ leading point-getter (26-36–62). With Yashin firmly placed among the league’s top half-dozen scorers, the Senators have a .636 winning percentage and are yapping at the heels of the burly, bruising Flyers for the top spot in the Eastern Conference.
Barely two years after a Sports Illustrated story that labeled them hockey’s “Worst Expansion Team Ever” and already on their fourth general manager in less than seven years, the Senators suddenly are the talk of the league. They are fast, fun, and successful. They employ the trap, but they’re not afraid to pressure the puck with–hold on–two forecheckers.
They are everything that is meant to fail: 1. expansion-borne; 2. small market; 3. low budget; and 4. Canadian-based (i.e. their income stream is in dollars that immediately turn jaundice when exposed to U.S. greenbacks).
“The difference in the dollar is the most difficult thing right now,” said General Manager Rick Dudley, who took over last summer when Pierre Gauthier, GM No. 3, surrendered the job. “The rest of it–small market, a low budget vs. a high budget–all that means is that you’ve got to make less mistakes with the dollars you do spend on players.
“You can’t be saying, `I’ll invest $5 million or $10 million in this guy,’ then halfway through his first season, find it isn’t working out, it’s just a mistake, and no one wants him. The way the Canadian dollar is, make just one of those mistakes, and you’re in a lot of trouble.”
Yashin, who will earn $3 million (U.S.) this year and is in line for a 10 percent increase for 1999-2000, arrived a year after the Senators opened for business in the fall of 1992. Selected No. 2 overall in the ’92 draft–after Roman Hamrlik was picked No. 1 by Tampa Bay–he played one more year in Moscow in ’92-93 before enduring the hardships and heartaches of a club that would finish dead last in two of his first three seasons.
He also sat out in a contract dispute in 1995-96 in the wake of Ottawa handing Alexandre Daigle a five-year, $12.5 million contract as the top pick in the ’93 draft.
In his five-plus seasons, surrounded by talent often dreadful and usually dubious, Yashin has evolved as a unique package for a center. He doesn’t have Eric Lindros’s size and strength or penchant for pounding, but he is faster, a better puckhandler, and has a stronger shot.
He doesn’t have Peter Forsberg’s Velcro-like strength on the puck, but he’s bigger and stronger and by no means a pauper with a pass. OK, he’s not Jaromir Jagr, but remember, Jagr is a couple of years older, a winger, and, for much of his time in Pittsburgh, has had a much more refined surrounding cast.
“Everyone is different,” Yashin said. “This is what makes the NHL so exciting. You use what you have to stay in this kind of business. Jagr has his things. I do my things. . .like Neely did his thing. Everyone is different.”
Off the ice, Yashin has improved his dexterity and strength since arriving in North America by taking up combat karate. He’s a grade above black belt, but is reluctant to talk at length on the subject, he says, for fear of stealing the spotlight from those who are far more seriously involved in the martial arts.
“I know it’s because I’m a hockey player people want to talk about this,” Yashin said Tuesday after Martin put his troops through a combat-like workout on the ice. “There are people who do it for a living, but no one cares about them? It’s not right. It’s why I don’t talk about it much.”
Last month, in an episode that touched off a media maelstrom, Yashin was forced to explain why he abruptly terminated a $1 million pledge he made last year to the Ottawa-based National Arts Center. After an initial payment of $200,000, Yashin agreed to pay the balance in four equal parts, but he put a halt to the payments Jan. 15 for what he said in a statement were “personal reasons.”
Like all faceoffs, there are two sides to the story:
– The NAC said at a Jan. 21 news conference that Yashin terminated the agreement because the NAC would not honor a side deal to pay $85,000 a year “for services rendered” to Tatiana Entertainment, a corporation owned by Yashin’s parents, Valery and Tatarina, both of whom live in Kanata with their other son, Dmitry. The NAC’s posture was that such an agreement would be illegal, as termed by the center’s attorneys.
– At a Jan. 28 news conference, Yashin told about 150 reporters that, among other reasons, he backed off his pledge because he was disappointed by the lack of Russian performing artists slated for the NAC’s upcoming schedule and that he was made to “feel like a criminal” when the NAC termed his agreement “illegal.” Never, said Yashin, “did my family intend to profit from this agreement.”
Yashin refuses to discuss the matter further.
“I said what I wanted to say at the news conference,” he said, later adding, “my parents don’t need this money; they don’t need these jobs.”
In the weeks and months ahead, the Senators, who can ill afford to live without their star center’s services, will find out if they can afford to keep him. His agent, Mark Gandler, said recently that Yashin’s next deal will be purely market driven. Pavel Bure’s new deal in Florida–worth up to $58 million over six years–likely will be the starting point for negotiations.
Dudley, who describes Yashin as a “huge man with magic hands,” ultimately will have to decide how much money to put in those hands. Can the Senators afford to keep him?
“I’ve seen no indication so far,” Dudley said, “that we won’t keep our assets.”
