Awful news from Russia: Plane crash kills KHL team

[1995hoo]

This was Semyon Varlamov's old team:

 http://sports.yahoo.com/nhl/blog/puck_daddy/post/Report-Plane-crash-kills-8216-majority-8217-?urn=nhl-wp11993

[maxduchaine]

Wow that's terrible. A lot of good players on that team.

[imref]

Players with NHL ties included defensemen Karel Rachunek, Ruslan Salei and Karlis Skrastins, as well as forwards Pavol Demitra and Josef Vasicek, the NHL website said, as well the team's head coach, Brad McCrimmon, who had played and coached in the NHL.

[Ali the Baseball Cat]

That's terrible.  Ruslan Salei was the captain of the Belarus team in the 2002 and I think the 2006 Olympics (in '02, they pulled one of the biggest upsets in Olympic history by beating Sweden in the quarterfinals).  He played for Florida and Anaheim IIRC. 

[Lintyfresh85]

Pavol Demitra

That name sounds familiar.

[OldChelsea]

Properly batting leadoff on nhl.com: http://www.nhl.com/ice/news.htm?id=587792&navid=DL|NHL|home

No former Capitals among the fatalities (thus far anyway), but Demitra, McCrimmon and Salei played in the league quite a few years.

[PowerBoater69]

If the Nats had to rebuild the team based on a draft from the other clubs, could they put together an 81 win squad?

[JCA-CrystalCity]

McCrimmon I think was an old Bruin.