Andrei Nikolishin donning a Caps jersey in 2000.

Andrei Nikolishin, who is currently playing in his 21st season of professional hockey, has had a long career. From 1996 to 2002, he was a Washington Capital. In 1998, along with teammates Dale Hunter, Peter Bondra, and Olie Kolzig, he helped the Caps reach their first ever Stanley Cup Final.

When the NHL lockout hit in 2004-05, Niko continued his career in Russia and eventually became a teammate of Evgeny Kuznetsov, playing with the Caps prospect in Traktor Cheylabinsk for two seasons in 2009-10 and 2010-11.

For this reason, Andrei, who now plays for Sokol Kyiv of the Ukrainian Professional Hockey League, was approached by Sportbox.ru to share his thoughts on the KHL playoffs and his former teammate’s decision to stay in Russia another year. My translation of his comments are below.

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Caps in Russia: Updates on Kozlov, Fedorov, Zednik, Jagr & More

Richard Zednik and Chris Simon chat during a KHL Game

We Miss You, Sergei.

We Miss You, Sergei.

We finally have another update from Fedor Fedin. It’s been awhile, but it’s for good reason. Since the KHL is about to wrap up the first half of it’s current season, we  gave Fedor the tall task of tracking down every KHL player with any Washington Capital ties and asked him to let us know how they’ve been doing – good or bad.  So basically if a guy has played for the Capitals in the past (Andrei Nikolishin), played on one of our AHL Affiliated Teams (Brandon Sugden), or been drafted by the team (Dmitri Orlov), they’re on the list.  We thought this was a good idea because we honestly miss some of our favorite erstwhile Caps from the past like: Viktor Kozlov, Sergei Fedorov, Richard Zednik, and Chris Simon, and thought this would be a great opportunity for everyone to get caught up.  Sadly, that human-ball-of-waste known as Jaromir Jagr is on the list, too, but since he’s one of Fedor’s favorite players on Avangard Omsk, we’re going to let it slide.

Anyways, below the fold is a huge table full of stats and information on all the Former Caps in the KHL.

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