Former Detroit Red Wings assistant coach Brad McCrimmon and defenceman Ruslan Salei are among the 43 people killed Wednesday in a plane crash in Yaroslav, Russia, according to a report by Itar-Tass News Agency.


Officials from the Russian Emergency Situations Ministry said the lone survivors are 26-year-old forward Alexander Galimov and a flight engineer.


The plane, a Soviet-era Yakovlev Yak-42 was carrying 37 members of the Yaroslav Lokomotiv hockey team along with eight crew members when it reportedly banked left shortly after takeoff and crashed some 500 metres from the end of the runway.


Witnesses at the scene told Russian aviation officials the plane never got more than 50-60 metres off the ground, clipped a beacon tower and burst into flames on the banks of the Volga River in the Russian city 240 kilometres northeast of Moscow.


The team was headed to the Belarusian capital of Minsk to play Dinamo Thursday in their Kontinental Hockey League season opener.


Russian authorities haven't confirmed the passenger list, but the team's roster is heavy with names familiar to NHL fans. In addition to McCrimmon and Salei, another player with ties to the Wings is goalie Stefan Liv.


Other players who had played in the NHL on the Yaroslav roster include: Josef Vasicek (Carolina, Nashville, NYI), Pavol Demitra (Ottawa, St. Louis, Minnesota, Vancouver), Karel Rachunek (Ottawa, NJ, NYR), Daniel Tjarnqvist (Colorado) and Alexander Vasyunov (NJ).


Yaroslav team officials told the Russian media outlets the plane, which can carry 120 passengers and crew, contained the team's main roster plus four youth players.


The 52-year-old McCrimmon only took the head coaching job with Yaroslav this spring after parting ways with the Wings following the season.


McCrimmon played in the NHL from 1979 until 1997 with Boston, Calgary, Philadelphia, Hartford, Detroit and Phoenix. He had 81 goals, 322 assists and 1,416 penalty minutes in 1,222 regular season games.


Salei also played last year in Detroit before jumping to the KHL as a free agent this summer when the Wings declined to offer him a contract.


The 36-year-old had 45 goals and 159 assists in 1,065 NHL games in Colorado, Detroit, Anaheim and Florida.


Liv, who was taken by Detroit in the fourth round of the 2004 NHL draft, never made it to the NHL before returning to Sweden in 2007. This would've been Liv's second season in the KHL.



Read more: http://www.windsorstar.com/sports/Fo...#ixzz1XICaTn1i
[Reply]

Tragic news.
[Reply]

Tragic....Dave, I am going to repost some of this in the NHL thread.
[Reply]

This is terrible. Prayers out to all the families and teams that are affected.
[Reply]

This is aweful.
[Reply]

Quite tragic, prayers out to the survivors and that they make it and all the families that lost someone.
[Reply]

Very sad.
[Reply]

This is awful, I didn't hear anything about this, thanks for sharing.
[Reply]

Pavol Demitra was a great player and if he never was injured he'd probably still be in the NHL. I enjoyed watching him in Vancouver as a Canuck and on team Slovakia during the 2010 Olympics. My thoughts and prayers to his family and all the families of the recently past players.

Tragic !
[Reply]

Tragic
[Reply]

Very Sad Indeed. God Bless their souls...
[Reply]

Very sad to hear this, three former Panthers were on that flight
[Reply]

Dave thanks for sharing the news, Thoughts and Prayers out to Family and all those involved.
[Reply]