Yakushev made mark in Summit Series en route to Hockey Hall of Fame

The 2018 Hockey Hall of Fame induction is Monday. This class includes NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman, and Willie O'Ree, the first black player in the NHL, in the Builders category as well as former players Martin Brodeur, Martin St. Louis, Alexander Yakushev and Jayna Hefford. Here NHL.com columnist Dave Stubbs profiles Yakushev.

Alexander Yakushev was chuckling as he listened to a story about his first trip to Canada, from late 1966 into early 1967, for a tournament as a member of Russia's national amateur team.
Legend has it that the forward, a few days before his 20th birthday, broke his only pair of skates in his first game, a 28-0 shellacking of Newfoundland's amateur champion in a tournament warmup, and that he had to buy his own replacement pair, spending $77 of the $100 he was given for the 20-day trip.
"That is not correct," Yakushev said brightly from Moscow, eager to set the story straight. "We weren't given $100. It was only $90. But the rest is true. And I spent the $13 I had left over on an Elvis Presley LP (record) and some chewing gum."
It was on a later trip to Canada that Yakushev, who will be inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto on Nov. 12, got the world's attention.
Yakushev, 71, is best known for eight games he played between Sept. 2-28, 1972, when star-filled teams from the Soviet Union and the NHL faced off in the historic, politically charged Summit Series. He has no problem if the hockey fans of today recognize him almost exclusively for that, rather than for his brilliant two-decade career.

"The Summit Series revealed the Soviet team and Russian hockey, for the first time, to Canadian fans," Yakushev said, reflecting on the importance of the eight-game series; the first four were played in Canada, the last four in Moscow. "If the Summit Series hadn't happened, Canadians wouldn't have known about [goalie Vladislav] Tretiak, [forward Valeri] Kharlamov and other great players in the Soviet Union.
"From our side, we got acquainted with the professional game in Canada. We had no possibility to watch those games in the Soviet Union. What was even more important in 1972 than seeing the great masters on the ice and playing against them was to make new friends. We consider nearly all of them as good friends even today."
Yakushev will be the third member of that 1972 Soviet team inducted into the Hall, joining Tretiak (Class of 1989) and, posthumously, Kharlamov (2005). Also in the Hall is late coach and Russian hockey pioneer Anatoly Tarasov (1974), architect of the 1972 team, who was elected in the Builders category.
"It's a big honor to be in the IIHF Hall of Fame, but I realize very well that the Hall of Fame in Toronto is much older and that the greatest players in history are there," Yakushev said. "I was very surprised that I would be elected 46 years after the Summit Series."

Paul Henderson's game-winning goals in Games 6, 7 and 8 in Moscow are indelible memories for Canadians, and Phil Esposito is legendary for having carried not just Russian checkers but the weight of his entire nation on his back.
For the Soviets, Tretiak, Kharlamov and forward Boris Mikhailov played in the brightest spotlight. But Yakushev was his team's stealthy superstar; his seven goals equaled the totals of Henderson and Esposito, and his 11 points were two behind Esposito for the series lead. Five of his seven goals came in the final three games. He scored four times on the power play.
"Russians had played against amateurs until then, not professionals," Yakushev said. "The Summit Series was our first experience at a very high level. We were astonished from the first minute when we landed in Canada because they took us directly to the bus from the plane without any passport control. We had a motorcycle escort. The Queen Elizabeth in Montreal was a luxury hotel for us. We all had our own TV sets, and we watched cartoons because we didn't need to understand the words. We were very, very much impressed by everything, including the incredible size of the steaks. We all enjoyed the very warm reception we received."

Of his seven goals in the Summit Series, the first, in Game 1, remains Yakushev's most cherished. The Soviets' 7-3 dismantling of Canada at the Montreal Forum on Sept. 2 was a nightmare of unthinkable proportions for a host nation that some said would steamroll its opponent in an eight-game sweep.
Nothing early that night suggested Canada wouldn't romp. The Soviets trailed 1-0 just 30 seconds into the game and 2-0 by 6:32 of the first period. But it was 2-2 at the end of the first, 4-2 for the supremely conditioned visitors after two periods and 7-3 at the final siren, with Yakushev scoring the game's final goal at 18:37 of the third period.
"It was my biggest wish to score a goal in the first game, especially because the first game was very important for us," Yakushev said. "It wasn't good from the beginning, but all of my teammates would play excellently."
Throughout the series, Yakushev was impressive for his fluid skating, strength and quick release, a player less likely to try to make the fancy pass favored by many on his team.

"To me, Yakushev resembled Jean Beliveau," said Canada forward Yvan Cournoyer, Beliveau's longtime Montreal Canadiens teammate, who as a right wing often directly faced Yakushev, a left wing. "He'd work hard all the time, he was very good with the puck. Remember Jean when he had the puck? Yakushev was a little bit like that too. He could fake the goalie, he had a very good shot. And he went to the net a lot because he was big. The Russians made a lot of passes and he'd be in position for deflections."
Defenseman Serge Savard saw a lot of Yakushev's rushes; he had seen more than a little of Beliveau, as well, also a longtime teammate with Montreal who won 10 Stanley Cup titles with the Canadiens and retired a year before the Summit Series.
"In 1972, with Kharlamov, Yakushev was their best player," Savard said. "He was a big, gentle guy, like Jean. Tall, not dirty, so impressive, a different style than his teammates."
Yakushev scored all seven of his goals against future Hall of Famers; four came against Ken Dryden, the other three against Tony Esposito.

"I always thought that Canadian fans, and our players, took to Yakushev as much as they did not just because he was so good, but because in style of play, size, how he looked on the ice," Dryden said. "He, most of all among the Soviet players, looked like an NHL player."
Tony Esposito recalls Yakushev as "a very, very smart player. He shot it quick, that was the big thing. When the puck came to him, instead of horsing with it, he'd one-time it. He was great like that. If you committed, he'd beat you. He wasn't as good as [Wayne] Gretzky, but he was like that. He was shifty and very patient."
As a teammate for more than a decade on the world stage and as an opponent in Russia with the Central Red Army, Tretiak witnessed the development of Yakushev as a player and a role model for Russian youth.
"I've always been impressed by his love for his profession and his devotion to the game, and especially to his Spartak club, for which he has played his whole life," Tretiak said. "I'd suggest that all hockey fans watch the Summit Series games and see Yakushev perform at the highest level. I believe that a real hockey player, like Yakushev, must be goal-oriented, attentive, disciplined, and must respect the opponent.

"Today, he does a lot to promote hockey in Russia and beyond. Together with hockey old-timers, he holds tournaments, takes part in games and sets the right example for young people. I'm very glad that after so many years, his Hall of Fame dream has come true."
Yakushev has been back to Canada on a number of occasions during the past few decades, mostly for Summit Series celebrations, and each of the four times he's been in Toronto he's paid a visit to the Hall of Fame. He can scarcely believe that his next trip will be for his own enshrinement, 46 years after the culture and sporting shock of 1972.
Yakushev would come to love the NHL game as he grew more familiar with it. He said that while Gretzky might statistically be the greatest forward in history, his own all-time favorite player is Bobby Hull.

"I'm sorry that Hull couldn't play in the Summit Series," he said of the longtime Chicago Blackhawks star, who had signed a contract with the World Hockey Association's Winnipeg Jets.
His favorite current player is Washington Capitals captain Alex Ovechkin, another Russian with a nose for the net, and he has a soft spot for the Detroit Red Wings' famed "Russian Five" -- Igor Larionov, Vyacheslav Fetisov, Vyacheslav Kozlov, Sergei Fedorov and Vladimir Konstantinov -- who played their motherland's style of hockey with distinction in the NHL.
Yakushev wonders how his own career might have turned out had he pursued even some of it in the NHL, a political impossibility in the Cold War era.
"We knew that the NHL was the best league in the world. The best players in the world were there," he said. "It would have been a dream for any of the Russian players to take part in it. But to leave our country and to move to a foreign league at that time was impossible legally. As for escaping or defecting, we couldn't even imagine it. It was totally impossible for our players, and for me."

Yakushev played 218 games internationally for his homeland, none more famous than the eight in the Summit Series. He won Olympic gold medals representing the former Soviet Union in 1972 and 1976. He played on seven world championship gold medal-winning teams, also earning two silvers and a bronze in his 10 trips to that tournament between 1968-77; he was a national champion in 1967, 1969 and 1976 with Moscow Spartak, for whom he played his entire Russian career from 1963-80 before playing three seasons in Austria with Kapfenberg until his retirement in 1983.
In 1970, Yakushev was bestowed with the prestigious title of Honored Master of Sport of the U.S.S.R., and 33 years later he was elected to the IIHF Hall of Fame.
Born Jan. 2, 1947, to parents who toiled in a metallurgical plant, Yakushev turned his attention from soccer to hockey as a teen, latching on with Moscow Spartak at age 16. Growing into his 6-foot-3, 205-pound frame, he would become a feared sniper, scoring a career-high 50 goals in 42 games for Spartak in 1968-69 and 339 for the team during his career. He was named Spartak's captain in 1976.

"I was a Spartak fan since I was a small boy," Yakushev said. "It was my favorite team and when I had the chance to play for them, it was a great honor. I'm very proud that I played 17 seasons for Spartak. I couldn't and I still can't imagine that I could play for any other club."
Yakushev said he'll be almost overwhelmed when he's inducted on Nov. 12, with Tretiak among those expected to be in attendance. In his acceptance speech, he said, he won't critique himself as a player.
"That's not for me to do," he said. "I can't describe my merits or my contributions to world hockey. Fans can draw their own conclusions. But I'm proud of what I accomplished, and I'm very proud to be joining the greatest players in the world in the Hall of Fame."