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Group of Russian players on the Detroit Red Wings

The Russian Five was the nickname given to the unit of five Russian ice hockey players from the Soviet Union that played for the Detroit Red Wings of the National Hockey League in the 1990s. The five players were Sergei Fedorov, Vladimir Konstantinov, Slava Kozlov, Slava Fetisov, and Igor Larionov. Three of the players were drafted by the Red Wings in 1989 and 1990, and their defections from the Soviet Union were aided by the Wings. The last two were acquired via trades from the New Jersey Devils and San Jose Sharks. Red Wings coach Scotty Bowman played the five together as a unit at times from October 1995 to June 1997, but also mixed and matched them with other teammates. The Russian Five were major contributors in the Red Wings' Stanley Cup winning run of the 1996–97 NHL season. Six days after the Cup victory, Vladimir Konstantinov was critically injured in a car crash that ended his ice hockey career. His Red Wings teammates dedicated the following season to him, and achieved the goal of "winning it for Vladdie" with their second consecutive Stanley Cup win. By 2003, the remaining four players had all either signed with new teams, been traded, or retired. The Russian Five left a lasting impact on the way ice hockey was played and taught in North America, and had contributed to a major change in how European players were viewed in the NHL.

During the Cold War, the best hockey players in the Soviet Union were not allowed to leave to play in the National Hockey League (NHL), despite their talents being on par with North American and Western European players. Before 1989, Victor Nechayev, who played three games for the Los Angeles Kings, was the only player from the USSR to play in the NHL. Sergei Pryakhin was given permission to play in the NHL in 1989 and played in 46 games through 1991. Neither player was considered a star in their native Russia. In the fifth round of the 1988 NHL Entry Draft, the Buffalo Sabres selected Alexander Mogilny with the 89th overall pick. Mogilny had been called "the best 19 year old player in the world" at the time. In May 1989, Mogilny became the first Russian player to defect from the Soviet Union in order to play in the NHL.

In June 1989, Red Wings general manager Jim Devellano arrived at the NHL Entry Draft determined to "start drafting some Russians." Devellano had discussed the possibility of drafting Sergei Fedorov with Red Wings owner Mike Ilitch; while Fedorov was considered one of the top young players in the world, the risk factor was high, as there was no guarantee that he would ever be able to come to Detroit to play, even if he wanted to. Ilitch instructed Devellano to draft the best players available, no matter where they came from, and management would worry about delivering them. Devellano drafted Fedorov in the fourth round, higher than any Soviet player had ever been drafted before. Referring to NHL draft conventional wisdom that most elite players were gone after the first three rounds, he later said, "I used the theory, who are we gonna get here now in the fourth round from North America, really?" The Red Wings followed up that pick with the 11th round selection of Fedorov's Soviet teammate Vladimir Konstantinov, an imposing two way defenseman who was already known as one of the best blue liners in the world. Wings executive vice president Jim Lites then contacted Detroit sportswriter Keith Gave about passing a secret message to Fedorov and Konstantinov from the Wings. Not only did Gave speak Russian, but his media credentials would enable him to get into an exhibition game in Helsinki where the Soviet national team was scheduled to play a Finnish elite level club. Gave agreed to the mission, and in August 1989, he managed to meet with the players after their game and slip them each a Red Wings media guide with a letter hidden inside. The letters made it clear that the Red Wings wanted both of them in Detroit and were willing to help them get there. By July 1990, Fedorov had decided to defect. The Soviet national team came to North America to play in the 1990 Goodwill Games, and had scheduled an exhibition match against USA Hockey in Portland's Memorial Coliseum on July 22, 1990. Jim Lites came to Portland, picked up Fedorov outside his hotel after the game, and brought him to Detroit in Ilitch's private jet. The Red Wings were planning to fly Konstantinov and his family out from Russia and get him to Detroit in time for the start of training camp in September, but the 1991 Soviet coup d'état attempt forced a change in plans. With the airports closed, Matveev took the family by train to Budapest. Lites met them there, again in Ilitch's private jet, and went back to Detroit with Konstantinov aboard. His wife and daughter followed two days later on a commercial flight.

Jim Devellano had been impressed by Slava Kozlov when he saw him play at a youth tournament in Lake Placid, New York, in 1987, when Kozlov was just 15. He called the Ilitches and told them, "I've just seen the best 15 year old hockey player I've ever seen in my lifetime – and I saw Wayne Gretzky play at that age." Devellano used his third round pick (45th overall) to draft Kozlov in the 1990 NHL Entry Draft, breaking his own record, set the previous year, for the highest draft pick of a Soviet player. He admitted later that this was a bigger risk, since in the third round, "You can get some North American players. It's not the fourth round, it's the third round." In December 1990, a Red Wings contingent, including Lites and assistant GM Nick Polano, traveled to Regina, Saskatchewan, for the World Junior Championships, ready to bring Kozlov back to Detroit with them. However, Kozlov, just 19 at the time, was not ready to commit to defecting, and returned to the Soviet Union with the rest of his team. Polano met with Kozlov three more times over the next year. Then, in November 1991, Kozlov was seriously injured in a car crash that killed his passenger, teammate Kirill Tarasov. Polano traveled to Russia again and offered to take Kozlov to get medical care in Detroit. Valery Matveev bribed Russian doctors, much as he had in Konstantinov's case, but this time secured Kozlov's release from his Red Army enlistment with a diagnosis of permanent brain damage and loss of peripheral vision stemming from head injuries sustained in the crash. Kozlov traveled to Detroit in February 1992 and made his debut with the Wings on March 12. He was 17 days short of turning 37. The Wings finished the lockout shortened season with the best record in the NHL, but were swept in the Stanley Cup Finals by Fetisov's former team, the Devils. After that series, Fetisov began pushing Bowman to acquire Igor Larionov, another former Red Army teammate then playing for the San Jose Sharks. He told Bowman if he could make a trade happen, "We would have five (Russians) then, and if you ever want to, you could play them together." The team won an NHL record 62 games, but fell to the Colorado Avalanche in six games in the Western Conference Finals. Towards the end of the regular season, Bowman had begun mixing and matching the five Russians with other teammates at times.

Detroit faced the Philadelphia Flyers in the 1997 Stanley Cup Finals. Before the series, most hockey commentators believed that the Flyers' size and strength, led by MVP Eric Lindros, would be too much for the smaller Wings to handle, and the Flyers were favored to win the Stanley Cup. However, the Red Wings surprised most observers by being the more physical team, and one standout in that regard was Vladimir Konstantinov. Early in Game 1, he leveled Flyers winger Trent Klatt as he attempted to carry the puck into the Wings' end; Klatt lay on the ice for several seconds afterwards.

Six days after the Stanley Cup win, most of the team gathered for a golf outing and dinner at The Orchards Golf Club in nearby Washington Township. Limousines were ordered so that no one partying would have to drive. Fetisov, Konstantinov, and team massage therapist Sergei Mnatsakanov left the party in a limousine driven by Richard Gnida, who had a suspended license after two convictions for drunk driving. The limo veered across three lanes of traffic, skipped the curb, and crashed into a tree. All four occupants were taken to nearby Beaumont Hospital; Fetisov suffered broken ribs and a punctured lung but made a full recovery. Mnatsakanov spent several weeks in a coma, and was permanently paralyzed from the waist down. Konstantinov suffered severe head injuries and was in a coma even longer than Mnatsakanov. When he finally awoke, he was unable to speak, and needed months of rehabilitation before he could leave the hospital. His brain had been torn in several places, which disrupted his ability to communicate, destroyed his short term memory, and made him unable to move with balance. His hockey career was over.

The Red Wings players and coaches dedicated their efforts the following season to Konstantinov and Mnatsakanov. Kris Draper later said, "The motivation for us going into the Stanley Cup Finals in back to back years was definitely Vladdy. He was certainly in our hearts and in our minds and every time we played, he was that extra motivation that we need." Assistant coach Dave Lewis later said, "I don't think anybody could have beaten us that year, because we were so focused on winning it for Vladdie and Sergei Mnatsakanov." In October 1997, Konstantinov's physical therapist decided that it was time to take him to Joe Louis Arena to see his teammates, and Konstantinov agreed with a thumbs up. He was wheeled into the locker room a few minutes before practice ended, and the Red Wings arrived to see Konstantinov sitting in his stall with his jersey still hanging behind him. The players greeted him with hugs and handshakes. The Red Wings managed the rare feat of repeating as Stanley Cup Champions, sweeping the Washington Capitals in the finals. Konstantinov was brought onto the ice in his wheelchair for the team's victory celebration, and Yzerman, rather than taking the traditional lap around the rink that the captain would normally skate, immediately brought the Cup to Konstantinov and put it in his lap. As he held the Cup steady, Fetisov and Larionov pushed Konstantinov's wheelchair as the entire team skated their victory lap to a standing ovation. Slava Kozlov was traded to the Buffalo Sabres in the summer of 2001; he later played several seasons for the Atlanta Thrashers before finishing his career in the KHL. In 2000, Larionov, as a free agent, left to join the Florida Panthers, but was traded back to the Red Wings in December of that year. Fedorov and Larionov were with the Wings when they won their third Stanley Cup in 6 years in 2002. Three of the five – Fetisov, Larionov, and Fedorov – were elected to the Hockey Hall of Fame after they retired.

The five players forever changed how North Americans viewed hockey players from Russia. Until the 1990s, there had been a perception that Europeans in general, and Russians in particular, were "soft", and that a team with too many of them would never be able to win a Stanley Cup. The Russian Five dispelled those myths forever, not only with two Cup wins but also because Konstantinov was one of the most feared hitters in the NHL. In a 2020 interview, coach Scotty Bowman pointed out that the Russian Five brought a different style of breakout to the NHL, in which both forwards would leave the defensive zone while their defensemen still had the puck, and crisscross in the neutral zone. In his words, "that was a no in our game", but he stated that the Russian Five had an advantage because North American players had not seen that style before, and it eventually became integrated into the NHL. Jim Devellano believed the Russian Five had an impact that went beyond hockey. "I grew up with all this propaganda about how the Russians were our enemy. Now here we were, bringing the enemy over here. Then they were so good – the last missing piece for us to win. And they became our friends. I think I learned something about propaganda and how it gets our minds working against different people." Sergei Fedorov agreed, saying, "We need to build more bridges than weapons. That’s my deep feeling about what should happen between our countries. Like we did in Detroit, you know?"