Former Red Wings Stanley Cup Winner Slava Kozlov Fired By KHL Club
Like Datsyuk, Slava Kozlov won the Stanley Cup twice while playing for the Red Wings and was a key component of Detroit's consecutive championship seasons.
In a similar unexpected fashion of when Kozlov was traded from the Red Wings in the stunning 2001 Dominik Hasek deal, he's once again been dealt another difficult piece of professional news.
Kozlov has reportedly been fired as head coach of HC Sochi in the KHL, with the most puzzling aspect of the situation being that he was recently hired and hadn't even coached a single game for the team.
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He was hired in early June to coach HC Sochi, who finished last in the KHL last season with a League-worst 41 points, after having spent the previous four seasons as an assistant coach with HC Dynamo Moscow.
Kozlov spoke to Sport-Express, a Russian-based sports publication, about the circumstances surrounding his being let go from HC Sochi. Not only was Kozlov let go, but several other staffers, including assistant head coach Alexander Savchenkov, were also removed.
(Kozlov's words, originally published in Russian, have been translated via Google Translate.)
"At first they told us that everyone would stay, but then they started to remove people one by one," Kozlov said. "I learned about it after the fact, because I wasn't inside and didn't work with many of them, I wasn't familiar with them. The news came to us gradually, people were fired one by one."
"I'll take a week off, but I'll be looking for a job."
Kozlov was selected in the third round (45th overall) of the 1990 NHL Draft; earlier, the Red Wings selected Keith Primeau third overall.
He would go on to become one of the most important contributors over the next several seasons with the Red Wings, and was also 1/5 of the famed "Russian Five" put together by coach Scotty Bowman starting in the 1995-96 season.
While playing for the Red Wings, Kozlov scored 202 goals with 213 assists in 607 regular season games, and added 42 goals and 37 assists in 114 playoff games.
Kozlov was traded to the Buffalo Sabres on June 30, 2001 for Hasek, and he spent a lone, injury-riddled season in Buffalo before being dealt once again, this time to the Atlanta Thrashers.
With Atlanta, Kozlov was able to regain some of his old form that made him a dangerous offensive threat with the Red Wings. Following the 2009-10 season, Kozlov returned to Russia and played several more seasons in the KHL before retiring in 2015 after 28 years of playing professionally.
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