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Russia Olympic roster: Nine KHL players, no Alexander Semin

As the host nation for the 2014 Sochi Olympics, the assumption was that Russia, for a variety of reasons, would carry a healthy amount of KHL players. That certainly turned out to be the case.

Russia's Olympic roster had nine KHL players on it; one goalie, two defensemen and six forwards. Some of those players, particularly the forwards, were surprising choices over the NHLers; Alexander Semin and Nail Yakupov aren't on the team, for example, while Alexander Popov and Alexei Tereshenko made the cut. That's interesting.

Evgeni Malkin, front, and Alexander Semin (AP Photo)

OLYMPIC ROSTERS: Canada | Sweden | Slovakia | Czech Republic

If the people who selected the team thought they were the best choices, so be it. Soin and Kokarev are there to build a shutdown fourth line, per Dmitry Chesnokov, and that's fine. Pumping up the KHL's reputation is always on the plate, though, and there's no better way to do that then say, "Our guys made it over theirs."

UPDATE: Semin eventually was added to the roster, replacing Soin.


Sergei Bobrovsky
Semyon Varlamov
Alexander Yeryomenko


Anton Belov
Alexei Emelin
Andrei Markov
Evgeny Medvedev
Nikita Nikitin
Ilya Nikulin
Fedor Tyutin
Slava Voynov


Artem Anisimov
Pavel Datsyuk
Denis Kokarev
Ilya Kovalchuk
Nikolai Kulemin
Evgeni Malkin
Valeri Nichushkin
Alex Ovechkin
Alexander Popov
Alexander Radulov
Sergei Soin (replaced by Alexander Semin)
Vladimir Tarasenko
Alexei Tereshenko
Viktor Tikhonov

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