Montreal Canadiens News

During a pre-season intrasquad scrimmage, Habs' prospect Alexander Avtsin played on a line with Mike Cammalleri and had one goal and one assist. Everyone note that the 20-years-old player managed to learn good English in just one year. And now he knows what the team needs from him. He also fairly judged himself, saying that it’s too early to talk about the NHL, and most likely he will spend another season in the AHL.

"I've spent half of the summer in Moscow, then I left to Montreal to get ready for the new season, I had a strengthening program", Avtsin told in Russian. “I worked with a group of players gathered by my agents. There were many Czech and Slovak players, like Havlat, Michalek"

You did look good in Cammalleri's line.

Alexander Avtsin: "We played with 10 forwards, three lines and one spare. We changed a lot and thus I didn't play with Mike only. I played in any position and with any other player."

Why did you decide to play in the AHL and not in the KHL?

Alexander Avtsin: "Every player has his own path. Every player decides for himself, and decides for what can be better and more needed."

24 years old Karri Ramo is one of the top KHL goalies. His NHL rights were recently traded to the Montreal Canadiens and he's expected to join the Habs during the next summer as his deal with Avangard Omsk of the KHL will run out on the next April 30th. In this interview with Ilya Elchaninov of sports.ru Ramo talked about his future plans, about his past experiences with Tampa Bay and about life in Russia.

RussianHockeyFans.com offers you a translation.

From RussianProspect.com

Alexander Avtsin and Dynamo Moscow decided to break the player's contract as he wants to try and get a spot with the Canadiens, as reported by Sport-Express.

During the last couple of months there was a lot of speculation around Avtsin's contract as he was under contract with Dynamo, but now he decided to report to North America.

Avtsin, 19, will skate in next week's rookie camp with the Habs, and then will skate in the main team's training camp in late August.

The promising right winger had three goals and six assists with Dynamo last year, but a wrist injury in January prematurely ended his season.

In spite of the recent news it looks like Alexander Avtsin will spend the 2010-11 season in the KHL with Dynamo Moscow. Dynamo's General Manager Andrei Safronov declared through the team's official site that all the young players remain property of the new formed OHC Dynamo and all contracts are valid.

"At the end of May the KHL confirmed that all the contracts with our players are valid. Our youngsters will stay. Avtsin and Dvurechensky have a contract up to April 2011 and 2012 respectively. Anton Krysanov (Phoenix Coyotes) and Andrei Plekhanov (Columbus Blue Jackets) are among the group of players that will skate in the team's training camp in Belarus.

We will part with Pavel Valentenko. He has a big contract and we can't afford that. According to my informations he plans to get back to North America."

Habs' prospect Alexei Emelin, 23, declared to Sovietskiy Sport v Tatarstane (via sports.ru) that he'll think about the NHL only next year.

Alexei Emelin: "I'm under contract with Ak Bars Kazan for the next season. I'll think about the NHL next year."

Recently Emelin has been awarded with Best Defenseman of the KHL Finals honor and skated in the 2010 World Championship in Germany.

Alexander Avtsin is going to join the Montreal Canadiens of the NHL this summer, as reported by sportbox.ru

The 19 years old wing spent the latest season with the Dynamo Moscow of the KHL, scoring nine points in 30 regular season games, before picking up a wrist injury that shut down his season in late January.

Most likely Avtsin will start the 2010-11 campaign with the Canadiens' AHL affiliates, the Hamilton Bulldogs.

Alexander Avtsin is without a doubt one of the highest touted prospects from Russia. Unfortunately he is not playing now because of a hand injury, and will come back most likely only in one month.

In this interview with Olga Alexandrova, appeared on the official Dynamo Moscow's site, Avtsin explained why he decided to remain in Russia for this season, discussed his own current season's performances and he also told how he met his girlfriend Milana.

RussianHockeyFans.com offers you a translation.

After the Habs lost 4-3 in an overtime to the St. Louis, Russian defenceman Andrei Markov had something to say to their goalie Carey Price.

According to the TEAM990 radio, Markov told Price "If you are not going to play with heart, stay home. We don't need you here."

The same radio station reported that some players supported Markov while some part of the team sided with Price.

The Montreal Canadiens didn't comment on the situation yet.

Habs' prospect Alexander Avtsin was surprisingly left off the Russian WJC squad and in this interview appeared on Sports.ru he discussed the WJC outcome, tried examinating the reasons of his exclusion from the team and admitted that he could have been useful for the Russians.

RussianHockeyFans.com offers you a translation of the interview with Avtsin.

The latest winner of the Rookie of the week award, Alexander Avtsin, during an interview published on KHL official site, talked about his first goals in pro hockey, about the upcoming WJC and about his plans for the next season.

RussianHockeyFans.com offers you a translation:

Habs' Andrei Markov and Thrashers' Maxim Afinogenov liked joke when they played for Dynamo Moscow of the KHL in the 2004/05 season, according to their former partner Yakov Rylov.

Rylov gave an interview to Russian site sports.ru where he recollected some stories with Markov and Afinogenov. RussianHockeyFans.com offers you a translation of some parts of the interview.

"Once Max Afinogenov made a bad pass and [Dynamo's head coach] Krikunov exclaimed: "What are you, blind?". The following day the team gathered in a room for the game analysis. Max took a seat in the first row and put on strong glasses. You know, the ones that enlarge your eyes considerably. Krikunov came in and started laughing.

At one moment there were rumors that Mikhail Grabovskiy (now playing for the Toronto Maple Leafs) would get traded from Neftekhimik to Dynamo. First he was expected to come right at that moment, then he was expected to come after the season. So one day there was a practice and Markov and Afinogenov were skating in jerseys with Grabovskiy's surname on the back."

RussianHockeyFans.com offers you the translation of an article about Alexander Avtsin published on Russian site Sport day by day by Roman Sergeev.

The story sheds some light over Alexander's biography and also contains quotes from Alexander himself, his agent and his coaches.

After notching his first KHL goal on Friday during a 4-0 home win against Neftekhimik Nizhnekamsk and scoring the game-winner against SKA in St. Petersburg two days later, Dynamo's player and Habs' prospect Alexander Avtsin has been named KHL rookie of the week.

Let's remember that he also had an assist in the game against Neftekhimik. In the two games played he finished +3 and had around 7 minutes of average ice time.

The other awarded players were goalkeeper Vitaly Eremeev (Dynamo Moscow), blueliner Vitaly Atyushov (Metallurg Magnitogorsk) and forward Mikelis Redlihs (Dinamo Riga).

Dynamo Moscow forward Alexander Avtsin, drafted by the Montreal Canadiens in the 2009 NHL Entry Draft, scored his first KHL goal. On December 11, 2009, Avtsin scored his team's fourth goal in a game against Neftekhimik Nizhnekamsk. Dynamo won 4:0.

"I think it was my best game in Dynamo jersey. I scored a goal, our line got some points too. We will work even harder. Now I feel great not only because I scored but also because the whole team played great," said Avtsin to a Russian site Championat.ru after the game.

Below is the video of Avtsin's first KHL goal.

After a long injury, finally Montreal Canadiens' superstar Andrei Markov started eyeing his return on ice, even if it won't be that soon, probably not earlier than New Year's eve, "surely before the Olympics", using his own words.

Let's remember that the defenseman got injured on the season's opening night when he had a collision with team mate, goalie Corey Price and he got a teandon slashed by Price's skate. He needed a surgery and a long rehabilitation program, but now it looks like it's going to end rather soon.

Markov had an interview with Dave Stubbs of the Montreal Gazette, Russian Hockey Fans offers you a resume:

I felt it in my ankle, I just bent over and saw the cut. At the time I wasn't thinking it was too bad. It's part of our game, it's bad luck. It wasn't (Price's) fault. Hopefully I'm going to be better than before.

It's still boring right now. It's not comfortable, but I'm happy to step on the ice. The hardest part (of rehab) is seeing your team on the ice and watching the game on TV. It's tough, mentally.

But I feel good. Everything's on schedule. We'll see what happens tomorrow and next week. Maybe it's going to be early, I don't know.

I don't want to look that far ahead, [towards the Olympics]. I'll do it step by step. First of all, I have to come back to our team and we'll see what happens.