“I just discovered him at the same time as I discovered the entire team. It was my first time in Russia. They told me about the young player who was a great worker. And he just kept progressing and progressing and progressing to the point that – wow, this guy is my best player.”



Bob Hartley walked in cold last fall when he took that job in Russia. He was a novice coach in the KHL with Avangard Omsk, and he didn’t know the language or many of the players at all.



There were some familiar names on his roster in Omsk – imports like Max Talbot, Cody Franson and David Desharnais, who Hartley knew well from the NHL. But his “best player,” the one who rose above them all, was this tall, skinny local kid who was never drafted, never played on the national team and came out of relative obscurity to become a KHL star at 24 years old.



He was the young player who Avangard management boasted to Hartley about, the great worker who...