Provorov’s focus unwavering in quest for NHL career

VOORHEES – Ivan Provorov wasn’t in North America for very long, maybe a month, when he was in the eighth grade at St. Mary’s School in Wilkes-Barre, Pa. and got a horrifying text message one day during class from his father, Vladimir.

It was a link to a news story that said Yak-Service Flight 9633 had crashed. Forty-three of the 45 people on board died in the fiery wreckage, including the Yaroslavl Lokomotiv hockey team, the Kontinental Hockey League squad from Provorov’s hometown.

Twenty-six players and 11 staff members, all gone in an instant.

“It was difficult for me because when I was a young kid I would always go watch games with my dad,” said Provorov, the Russian defenseman the Flyers selected with the seventh-overall pick last month. “The whole city loves hockey. They live for it. It was hard when they lost the team.”

Among the deceased was one of Provorov’s childhood heroes, Czech-born defenseman Karel Rachunek who played 371 NHL games between the Senators, Rangers and Devils.

Provorov, who played for Yaroslavl Lokomitiv’s youth team, had made the difficult decision to leave his family in Russia and, at age 14, move to North America to follow his lifelong dream of making the NHL.

He was mostly meeting new people while he played for the Wilkes-Barre Knights bantam team, but he had childhood friend and teammate Nikita Pavlychev, who the Pittsburgh Penguins selected in the seventh-round of last month’s draft.

“Nikita and I played since we were five to the age of 16,” Provorov said. “It was easier to have a couple Russian guys next to me.”

Learning the language

Provorov is a quick learner. He picked up the North American game quickly and says he got all A’s and B’s in school. So it should come as no surprise that he felt comfortable speaking English in only three months after joining the program in Wilkes-Barre.

The Pennsylvania town was the destination because the team’s assistant coach, Alex Vasko, recruited Provorov from Yaroslavl. Although Vasko is Ukranian, he’s fluent in Russian.

“Ivan did not speak any English when he first came to the U.S., so I was his translator for some time,” Vasko told NHL.com back in March. “But he picked up the language very quickly from school, his teammates and his hosting family. Now he speaks English better than me.”

He watched a lot of television and movies, to help pick up the language, including his favorite flick, “Gladiator.” Listen to an interview with Provorov and there’s no discernable Russian accent.

“My billet family helped me a lot with that, too,” he said. “Without them and the school there that I went to, I probably wouldn’t be able to speak the language.”

Staying in North America

The first time Flyers coach Dave Hakstol watched Provorov play, the defenseman was in his first and only season with the Cedar Rapids (Iowa) RoughRiders of the United States Hockey League.

“He was a guy that stood out on the ice there,” said Hakstol, who was the coach of North Dakota at the time. “He competes extremely hard in all situations and as a young guy he was a dominant player in that league.”

Not for long, he wasn’t.

That game Hakstol saw was two years ago. After scoring 19 points in 56 games as a 15 year old playing against teams that had 20 year olds, Provorov was selected by the Brandon Wheat Kings of the Western Hockey League in the CHL import draft.

He was also drafted in the third round of the KHL draft by his hometown team, Yaroslavl Lokomitiv.

Ultimately, Provorov decided that he couldn’t go back home. It wouldn’t lead him to his ultimate goal so he went west to Brandon, Manitoba.

It’s common for NHL draft hopefuls to decline an invitation from the KHL, but considering what happened in Provorov’s hometown three years earlier no one would have blamed him for packing up and going home.

“My dream was to play in the NHL since Day 1 I started playing hockey,” Provorov said. “I hadn’t even looked at that option and my hometown team knows that I want to play in the NHL. That’s my dream and I’m going to do whatever I can to make the team.

“I think it’s a good league. It’s the second-best league in the world, but there’s no doubt the NHL is the best league in the world.”

Destined for Brandon

If the plane carrying Lokomotiv hadn’t hit a tower upon takeoff and crashed on Sept. 7, 2011 — and if he had returned to Yaroslavl to play — Provorov’s head coach would have been former Flyers defenseman Brad McCrimmon.

McCrimmon left the Detroit Red Wings, where he was an assistant coach, in May 2011 to take the job with Lokomotiv in hopes of building a career in hockey as a head coach.

Instead, Provorov played last season for Kelly McCrimmon, Brad’s brother. It was clear to Provorov that the path to the NHL would be better through the Brandon Wheat Kings than Yaroslavl Lokomitiv.

“I think Ivan made those decisions long before he got to Brandon,” McCrimmon said by phone. “It’s a real interesting story. You look at the courage it would take for a 14 year old to move — just reverse it — a 14 year old to move from Canada to Russia to play hockey or Philadelphia to Russia to play hockey and be away from your family and what you know with respect to culture and how you grew up. I think Ivan, by having that commitment and traveling that fast, it was clear that his goal was to play in the NHL. That’s why he made the sacrifices that he did.”

His Wheat Kings teammates would usually head to breakfast on gamedays after morning meetings. Provorov would stay in the coach’s office and talk.

“He’s a really insightful person,” said McCrimmon, who has been the Wheat Kings’ GM since 1989, eight years before Provorov was born, and has been the majority owner since 2000 and head coach since 2004. “He’s mature beyond his years and when you get him in the right setting he’s an easy guy to have a conversation with and a very bright guy.”

It became clear after three weeks of training camp and preseason that Provorov would be a big part of Brandon’s team. In his first season, Provorov led WHL rookies in points (61) and assists (46). He was a top-pair blueliner since the first game of the season.

What’s next?

McCrimmon would love nothing more than for Provorov to not make the Flyers’ roster.

The 54-year-old former right wing turned down a job with the Toronto Maple Leafs this offseason in part because he thought the Wheat Kings have a chance to win a championship next season.

“I do think that it’s realistic that he’d play in Philly, at the latest, as a 19 year old, but as an 18 year old,” McCrimmon said, “and having played only one year in junior, I think there’s a lot left for him to accomplish at this level.”

For Provorov, the self-proclaimed “confident guy,” he wants to get to the NHL as soon as possible. The first hurdle is out of the way. He signed his entry-level deal exactly one week after he was drafted.

“Since Day 1 playing hockey I always wanted to play in the NHL,” Provorov said. “That’s my goal and I’m gonna do everything I can to make the team.”

Dave Isaac; (856) 486-2479; disaac@gannettnj.com .