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R.I.P. Andrei Lomakin (1964-2006) |
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Bad news, as Russia's Sport Express and Russian Hockey Digest report the passing of former NHL left wing Andrei Lomakin over the weekend after a lengthy illness. He was only 42.
Lomakin, a star for Khimik and Dynamo Moscow as well as the Soviet national team, was drafted by the Philadelphia Flyers after the fall of communism and the exodus of former Soviet players to the NHL. He was 27 when Philadelphia selected him in the 7th round on the 1991 NHL Entry Draft.
The Flyers were in the midst of a five-year stretch of missing the playoffs, and desperately in need of skilled forwards. Lomakin, who won Olympic Gold with with the Soviet team at the Calgary Olympics in 1988 and participated in the classic 1987 Canada Cup series, boasted classic Soviet skating and puck-handling skills.
Lomakin joined the team immediately, becoming the first Russian player to dress for the Flyers. The small (5-foot-9, 175 pound, smooth-skating Lomakin did not provide as much offense as hoped, but was a solid two-way play.
He scored 14 goals and 30 points in 57 games his first year, adapting relatively fast to the NHL game but quietly struggling with the English language.
The next year, he was joined by much younger countrymen Dmitri Yushkevich and Slava Butsayev. Lomakin scored just 8 goals and 20 points in 1992-93, but displayed a commitment to two-way hockey that impressed Bob Clarke (who had returned to the Flyers organization with a senior vice president title-- the same title he now holds again). Lomakin posted a solid +15 rating for a Flyers team that finished fifth in the Atlantic Division.
Clarke left after the 1992-93 season to take the GM job for the expansion Florida Panthers and picked up Lomakin from Philly in the expansion draft, figuring he would do well under coach Roger Neilson's system.
Lomakin had a solid season for the Panthers in 1993-94, scoring 19 goals and 47 points in a second- and third-line role. But he never got going after the 1994-95 lockout (one goal, seven points) as was out of the NHL after the season.
In the summer of 1995, Lomakin accepted a contract offer from Fribourg-Gotteron of the top Swiss league, but shortly into the season transferred to Eisbären Berlin in Germany's DEL.
Lomakin dominated his slower, less skilled opponents in the DEL (21 goals, 35 points in 26 games). In 1995-96, he split the season between Berlin and the Frankfurt Lions, retiring at age 33 after an injury plagued season.
Source: http://www.rushockey.com/events.php?i=sl&stream=sl_news&id=558