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Alexander Mogilny (Александр Геннадиевич Могильный, Aleksandr Gennadijevič Mogil'nyj) born on February 18, 1969, in Khabarovsk, USSR (now Russia) is a professional ice hockey player.
His most common nickname was "Alexander the Great" but he has sinced passed that down to Russian Phenom Alexander Ovechkin. Ovechkin later said in an interview how he was honored to be receiving the nickname of one of his boyhood heros.
Playing career
Mogilny was the first Soviet ice hockey player to defect to the National Hockey League. In the Soviet Union, he played on a line with center Sergei Fedorov and winger Pavel Bure. He represented the Soviet Union in 1988 and 1989 at the World Junior Championships, winning the Best Forward award in 1988. Mogilny also played for the senior Soviet team that won the gold medal at the 1988 Winter Olympics. After the medal ceremony of 1989 Junior championships, he left the Soviet team and was flown to North America by representatives of the Buffalo Sabres, the NHL club that had drafted him, 89th overall, a year earlier in the 1988 NHL Entry Draft.
In the NHL, he has played for the Buffalo Sabres, Vancouver Canucks, and the New Jersey Devils (winning the Stanley Cup in 2000). He signed as a free agent with the Toronto Maple Leafs in 2001, and quickly became one of their top players. In the process, he became the only person to dethrone Leafs captain Mats Sundin as the team's leading scorer since his Leafs debut, beating him by 7 points in 2002-03. In the 2003-04 season he injured his hip and had to have major surgery and missed most of the season.
After recovering over the lockout cancelled 2004-05 season, he re-signed with New Jersey in August 2005, agreeing to seven million dollars for two years. Mogilny was placed on waivers by the New Jersey Devils, and has been assigned to the Albany River Rats, the Devils minor league affiliate, in order to make salary cap room for Patrik Elias' return. His 473 career NHL goals are the most ever for a player entering the AHL. He continues to play in the minors. This is simply a case of economics - his salary is huge by any standard and in the "new" NHL, 90% of players are not worth $3.5 million a year so it is much more affordable to keep him in the minor leagues at a lower salary.
He has won numerous awards, including the Lady Byng Trophy in 02/03. Mogilny tied Teemu Selänne for the most goals scored in the 1992-93 NHL season, scoring 76 goals in 77 games. In that same season he scored his 50th goal in his 46th game, however it does not count as an official 50 goals in 50 games because his 50th goal came in his team's 53rd game. The following season he would become only the second non-North American player to captain an NHL team (after Lars-Erik Sjoberg of the Winnipeg Jets) when he was named the captain of the Sabres after the injury to Pat LaFontaine. He has been the leading scorer on his team for several seasons.
Alexander Mogilny is considered one of the best Russian players in history. He was the first ever Soviet person to defect to the U.S., first ever European to captain an NHL team, first ever European to lead the league in goals scored, first Russian to be named to the NHL all-star team, and is the second all-time Russian scorer in the NHL. Mogilny should've also been the first Russian player to scored 1000 points in the NHL but several injuries have delayed him from reaching that goal until finally fellow Russian Megastar Sergei Fedorov reached the mark just a few games before Mogilny. Fedorov later said in an interview saying "I really have to share this honor with Alexander Mogilny. I knew he would've reached the mark much earlier than I did if it wasn't for his injuries." Mogilny later replied saying that he didn't care about all those individual awards but said that Fedorov comments show what kind of a class player he was.
Mogilny was also part the one of the greatest lines in the world of hockey. In the late 80's he was paired with close friends Pavel Bure and Fedorov and there would be the highest scoring lines in any of the tournaments that they participated in.
Awards
- World Junior Championship Best Forward 1988
- Lady Byng Memorial Trophy - 2003
- NHL Second All-Star Team - 1993, 1996
- Played in NHL All-Star Game - 1992, 1993, 1994, 1996, 2001
- Member of Triple Gold Club
Career statistics
| Regular season | Playoffs | |||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Season | Team | League | GP | G | A | Pts | PIM | GP | G | A | Pts | PIM | ||
| 1986-87 | CSKA Moscow | USSR | 28 | 15 | 1 | 16 | 4 | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | ||
| 1987-88 | CSKA Moscow | USSR | 39 | 12 | 8 | 20 | 14 | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | ||
| 1988-89 | CSKA Moscow | USSR | 31 | 11 | 11 | 22 | 24 | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | ||
| 1989-90 | Buffalo Sabres | NHL | 65 | 15 | 28 | 43 | 16 | 4 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 2 | ||
| 1990-91 | Buffalo Sabres | NHL | 62 | 30 | 34 | 64 | 16 | 6 | 0 | 6 | 6 | 2 | ||
| 1991-92 | Buffalo Sabres | NHL | 67 | 39 | 45 | 84 | 73 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 2 | 0 | ||
| 1992-93 | Buffalo Sabres | NHL | 77 | 76 | 51 | 127 | 40 | 7 | 7 | 3 | 10 | 6 | ||
| 1993-94 | Buffalo Sabres | NHL | 66 | 32 | 47 | 79 | 22 | 7 | 4 | 2 | 6 | 6 | ||
| 1994-95 | Spartak Moscow | Rus | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | ||
| 1994-95 | Buffalo Sabres | NHL | 44 | 19 | 28 | 47 | 36 | 5 | 3 | 2 | 5 | 2 | ||
| 1995-96 | Vancouver Canucks | NHL | 79 | 55 | 52 | 107 | 16 | 6 | 1 | 8 | 9 | 8 | ||
| 1996-97 | Vancouver Canucks | NHL | 76 | 31 | 42 | 73 | 18 | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | ||
| 1997-98 | Vancouver Canucks | NHL | 51 | 18 | 27 | 45 | 36 | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | ||
| 1998-99 | Vancouver Canucks | NHL | 59 | 14 | 31 | 45 | 58 | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | ||
| 1999-00 | Vancouver Canucks | NHL | 47 | 21 | 17 | 38 | 16 | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | ||
| 1999-00 | New Jersey Devils | NHL | 12 | 3 | 3 | 6 | 4 | 23 | 4 | 3 | 7 | 4 | ||
| 2000-01 | New Jersey Devils | NHL | 75 | 43 | 40 | 83 | 43 | 25 | 5 | 11 | 16 | 8 | ||
| 2001-02 | Toronto Maple Leafs | NHL | 66 | 24 | 33 | 57 | 8 | 20 | 8 | 3 | 11 | 8 | ||
| 2002-03 | Toronto Maple Leafs | NHL | 73 | 33 | 46 | 79 | 12 | 6 | 5 | 2 | 7 | 4 | ||
| 2003-04 | Toronto Maple Leafs | NHL | 37 | 8 | 22 | 30 | 12 | 13 | 2 | 4 | 6 | 8 | ||
| 2005-06 | New Jersey Devils | NHL | 34 | 12 | 13 | 25 | 6 | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | ||
| 2005-06 | Albany River Rats | AHL | 12 | 3 | 5 | 8 | 4 | |||||||
| NHL Totals | 990 | 473 | 559 | 1032 | 432 | 124 | 39 | 47 | 86 | 58 | ||||
Statistics as of 28 Feb 2006
International play
Played for the Soviet Union in:
- 1988 Winter Olympics (gold medal)
- 1988 World Junior Championships
- 1989 World Junior Championships (gold medal)
- 1989 World Championships
- 1996 World Cup of Hockey
See also
note: Mogilny served as captain, during most of the 1993-94 season, while Pat LaFontaine was injured & out of the line-up
External link
- * Mogilny statistics
1969 births | Buffalo Sabres players | Lady Byng winners | Living people | Naturalized citizens of the United States | New Jersey Devils players | National Hockey League 100-point seasons | Olympic ice hockey players of the Soviet Union | Russian ice hockey players | Soviet defectors | Soviet ice hockey players | Stanley Cup champions | Toronto Maple Leafs players | Triple Gold Club | Vancouver Canucks players | Albany River Rats players
Aleksandr Mogilnyj | Alexander Gennadijewitsch Mogilny | Могильный, Александр Геннадиевич | Aleksandr Mogilnyi | Alexander Mogilny
"Alexander Mogilny"