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The Canadiens’ Nikita Scherbak was 17 when he boarded a flight from Russia, not speaking a word of English and knowing very little about the new country he was going to.

“I was afraid, I was kind of shy,” Scherbak recalled about what was going through his mind during that flight just over five years ago. “I didn’t know what to do, what to say. That was probably the biggest part. But I wasn’t scared. I knew it was going to be hard, I knew it was going to be a different country and a different style of hockey. I was trying to get myself ready while I was flying to Canada.

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“I had no idea what to expect, honestly,” Scherbak added after practice Wednesday in Brossard. “I knew Canada is a nice country and people are nice and it’s a safe country to live in. But I didn’t know any more than that.”

When the plane landed in Saskatchewan, Scherbak was met at the airport by David Struch — head coach of the Saskatoon Blades, who selected the Russian forward in the second round of the 2013 CHL Import Draft — and a couple of his new junior teammates. They then dropped Scherbak off at the billet home he would be living in with another teammate, David Nemecek of the Czech Republic.