Alexander Mogilny
Alexander Gennadevich Mogilny is a Russian former professional ice hockey player and the current president of Amur Khabarovsk of the Kontinental Hockey League. Over a 16-season career in the National Hockey League from 1989 to 2005, he played for the Buffalo Sabres, Vancouver Canucks, New Jersey Devils, and Toronto Maple Leafs.
Mogilny was selected 89th overall by Buffalo in the 1988 NHL entry draft. In 1989, he became the first NHL draftee to defect from the Soviet Union to pursue a career in North America, marking a pivotal moment in the league's history. During his tenure with the Sabres, he became the first Russian player to serve as an NHL captain and lead the league in goals – achieving the latter in the 1992–93 season with 76. Known for his elite skating, skill, and sniper's touch, he is one of only seven players ever to score more than 70 in a single season.
Mogilny later won the Stanley Cup with the New Jersey Devils in 2000, joining the Triple Gold Club. A two-time member of the NHL All-Star Team and six-time All-Star, he has surpassed 1,000 career points and earned the Lady Byng Memorial Trophy in 2003 for sportsmanship and excellence. He also shares the NHL record for the fastest goal to start a game.
Internationally, Mogilny represented both the Soviet Union and Russia, winning gold at the 1988 Winter Olympics, 1989 World Championships, and 1989 World Junior Championships. He was named best forward at the 1988 World Juniors after leading the tournament in goals, assists, and points, and later competed for Russia at the 1996 World Cup of Hockey.
Mogilny was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 2025.
Playing career
Early career and defection
Born and raised in Khabarovsk, located in the Soviet Union's Far Eastern region, Mogilny was recruited when he was 15 years old to join CSKA Moscow, commonly referred to as the "Red Army Team". As the CSKA organization was a functioning division of the Soviet Army, it was able to draft the best young hockey players in the Soviet Union onto the team.In 1986, Mogilny was made a full-time player of CSKA Moscow. He finished his first year with 15 goals and 16 points in 28 games. At 17 years old, Mogilny and Sergei Fedorov were the youngest members on the team. Still, team officials anticipated that the duo, along with the imminent arrival of Pavel Bure, would succeed the generational KLM-Line of Vladimir Krutov, Igor Larionov and Sergei Makarov.
Mogilny's first major appearance for the Soviet Union on the international stage was at the 1987 World Junior Championships. He finished the tournament with three goals and two assists in six games. However, his team was ejected from the tournament in its final game following a brawl with Team Canada, an incident later known as the "Punch-up in Piestany". The International Ice Hockey Federation suspended all the players involved in that game from competing in international events for 18 months. The penalty was eventually reduced to six months, allowing Mogilny to compete in the 1988 World Junior Championships. He led the tournament with nine goals and 18 points in seven games, helping his team to a silver medal finish and earning the tournament's best forward award. Later that year, he earned a spot on the senior national team at age 18 for the 1988 Winter Olympics, a rare achievement for such a young player, and won a gold medal with five points in six games. The next year, at the 1989 World Junior Championships, he served as team captain and was a part of the dominant Bure–Fedorov–Mogilny line. Mogilny finished that tournament with seven goals and 12 points in seven games, including a hat-trick against Canada that clinched the gold medal. Bob McKenzie described him as "the world's best junior player, plays on the world's best junior line, on the world's best junior team".
Despite his success with the Soviet national teams and his growing importance on CSKA Moscow, Mogilny longed for a life in the NHL. In May 1989, he chose to join the Buffalo Sabres, the NHL team that had selected him in the 1988 NHL entry draft. At the time, he was widely considered the best player outside the NHL and without political barriers, would have been a contender for the first overall pick. Although the NHL seemed off limits for Mogilny, the Sabres believed he was worth the risk. After winning his first World Championships at the 1989 World Championships, he made history by becoming the first Soviet hockey player to defect to North America.
Buffalo Sabres (1989–1995)
Mogilny was given the number 89 by team management in recognition of both the year he arrived and his place in the draft. He subsequently wore number 89 for his entire playing career. He made his NHL debut on 5 October 1989, against the Quebec Nordiques during the 1989–90 season and scored his first NHL goal just 20 seconds into his first shift at age 20. At 20 seconds, he was the third fastest player to score a goal in his NHL debut, the record being 15 seconds. Despite the successful start, he only scored two goals in his first month in the NHL. He had a fear of flying and needed time to adjust to a new country and culture. He finished his rookie season with 15 goals and 43 points in 65 games and made strides in his sophomore year. Playing in 62 games, he finished with his first point-per-game season as he improved to 30 goals and 64 points. He capped off his first 30-goal season with his first career hat-trick during the last game of the regular season. He continued his ascension the next year scoring 39 goals and 84 points in 67 games. On 21 December 1991, in a game against the Maple Leafs, Mogilny scored five seconds into the game to tie the NHL record for fastest goal scored to start a game. In the 1992 playoffs, he suffered a significant leg injury during the third period of game two against the Boston Bruins, forcing him out for the remainder of the series.The 1992–93 season was a banner year for Mogilny, as he formed a deadly combination with linemate Pat Lafontaine and Dave Andreychuk and scored an astonishing 76 goals and 127 points in 77 games. His 76 goals tied Finnish rookie Teemu Selänne for the NHL goal-scoring lead that year, which was the fifth-highest season goal total in NHL history and the first time that any player developed outside North America led the NHL in goals. Mogilny's 76 goals and 127 points set the highest season totals ever for a Russian NHL player at the time, and the highest goal totals in Buffalo Sabres franchise history. He scored his 50th goal in his 46th game that year, the fourth-fastest in NHL history, but it did not count as an official 50 goals in 50 games record as it occurred during the team's 53rd game. Mogilny finished the season with seven hat-tricks including three in four games and two four goal games in a stretch where he scored 23 goals in 13 games. By the end of March, he had recorded 74 goals in 70 games and led the NHL in goals for most of the season. He then experienced his longest goalless stretch of the year, going six games without a goal, during which he was surpassed by Selanne. In the final game of the season, Mogilny ended his drought by scoring twice and finished tied with Selanne for the league lead in goals. In the 1993 playoffs, Mogilny played a major role for the Sabres in the division semifinals with six goals in four games. Although he had nine points in 12 career playoff games leading up to that point, he had yet to score his first playoff goal. He went on and scored his first two in a game one win, propelling his team to a four-game sweep of the Boston Bruins in the first round. In the division finals, the Sabres were matched with the Montreal Canadiens. After continuing his playoff goal streak to five games and adding an assist in the series opener, Mogilny broke his leg during a collision in game three and was unable to return for the rest of the series. The Sabres went on to lose the next game and the series in four games. It was the second time in back-to-back years that Mogilny had suffered a significant leg injury. The second leg injury delayed his start to the next season. He finished the 1993–94 season with 79 points in 66 games and made history when he served as the Sabres' captain for a period that year, the first Russian captain in NHL history.
He finished his final season with the Sabres during the lockout-shortened 1994–95 season, leading the team in scoring with 47 points in 44 games, and also led the club in playoff scoring.
Vancouver Canucks (1995–2000)
Due to financial restraints brought about by the contractual demands of LaFontaine and Dominik Hašek, the Sabres were looking to cut salary and subsequently traded Mogilny, along with a fifth-round draft pick, to the Vancouver Canucks in exchange for Michael Peca, Mike Wilson and a first-round draft pick ahead of the 1995 NHL entry draft on 8 July 1995. In doing so, the Sabres lowered team salary from about $22 million to around $18–19 million at the time of the trade, although retained a portion of Mogilny's $3.75 million contract.Vancouver Canucks president Pat Quinn acquired Mogilny with the sole intention of winning the franchise's first Stanley Cup. The team had just been swept in conference semifinals of the 1995 playoffs by the Chicago Blackhawks, and Quinn gave up three important pieces to acquire one of the league's best talents. The motive was to pair Mogilny with Pavel Bure and form a dominant scoring line, as the two had played together at CSKA Moscow and had an established chemistry off the ice. Bure however, missed almost their entire first season together with a torn ACL, so Mogilny played primarily with Cliff Ronning and Martin Gélinas. He led the team with 55 goals, 107 points, and finished third in the league in goals. Mogilny followed that with nine points in six games in his first playoff series for Vancouver but the Canucks were ousted in the conference quarterfinals by the Stanley Cup champions that year, the Colorado Avalanche.
It was with Vancouver where he started to develop into a consistent offensive threat on the penalty kill, as he finished near the top of the league in shorthanded production for multiple seasons. He later wryly remarked "You don't have to be a genius to kill penalties. You get the puck and hammer it down the ice. How tough can that be?" Mogilny led the Canucks in scoring again his second year with 73 points, but it marked the end of his success in Vancouver. In the subsequent years, assorted injuries and inconsistency dropped his production to 128 points in 157 games over the next three seasons and the Canucks missed the playoffs each year. He was also unable to find the expected on-ice success with Bure as both players preferred to play on their off-wing. After trading Bure to the Florida Panthers in January 1999, the Canucks traded Mogilny to the New Jersey Devils at the trade deadline in 2000 in exchange for Brendan Morrison and Denis Pederson.