“I am happy to join such a great club. The negotiations were not simple, but at the same time they were clear and understandable. Everyone knows that Ak Bars is a promising team that just missed the cup last season. I hope that I will be able to give the team what was not enough to achieve the main goal,” reminds the native of Omsk, Russia, that Kazan reached the finals of the KHL last year, where they fell short of CSKA Moscow.
Last season, after returning from an unsuccessful stint in Arizona in the NHL, Jaškin became the top scorer in the KHL (40 goals), dominated the Canadian scoring (62 points) and was named the most valuable player in the long-term phase of the competition. He played a total of 214 games in the KHL (for Dynamo Moscow and St. Petersburg) with a balance of 122 goals and 84 assists.
The best scorer and the most valuable player of the regular season Dmitry Yashkin will rock in Kazan. Welcome! pic.twitter.com/ZuqL3uUeYW
— HC Ak Bars (@hcakbars) June 7, 2023
In St. Petersburg, they wanted to keep him for the next few years, but the deal collapsed due to the player’s financial demands.
Top news! Dmitry Yashkin – Ak Bars player⚡️
The 30-year-old striker has signed a three-year contract. Last season, Yashkin played for SKA, scoring 69 (25+44) points in 81 games with a +19 rating.
Read more ????️️️️️️ https://t.co/NxCrvPLstr pic.twitter.com/rNFKsbDULt
— HC Ak Bars (@hcakbars) June 7, 2023
“We were ready to keep Dmitri and made him an offer to extend his contract on good terms. However, a healthy club is required to consider the salary cap and financial feasibility, so we cannot accommodate all player requests. In such a situation, the best solution is to respectfully say goodbye and everyone go their own way,” said SKA head coach Roman Rotenberg.
“I know almost everyone from the Kazan squad, many of the guys even personally. Against others, I started as an opponent. I plan to come to Tatarstan soon to meet the people at the club and get to know the city better. I’ve been to Kazan several times, it’s a very beautiful place,” says the forward, who represented the Czech Republic at the 2018 and 2019 World Cups as well as the 2016 World Cup.
Yaškin closed the door to the national team with his move to Russia last summer. The domestic hockey board decided that the hockey players who went to the KHL after Russia started the war in Ukraine will not be invited to the national team.
In February of this year, Jaškin, together with other St. Petersburg players, congratulated, among other things, the Russian army in a club video on the occasion of Defender of the Fatherland Day, and entered the match in Sochi in an army jersey with a Russian flag. Czech hockey president Alois Hadamczik responded in an interview to Sport.cz that “such a person cannot currently represent our country”.
