Vladimir Krutov

Who was Vladimir Krutov?

Vladimir Yevgenyevich Krutov, nicknamed The Tank, was a Soviet hockey forward. Together with Igor Larionov and Sergei Makarov, he was part of the famed KLM Line. He is considered one of the best hockey wingers of the 1980s.

For the Soviet Union national team, Krutov won the 1981 Canada Cup, two golds and one silver in the Olympics, and six golds, one silver, and one bronze in the World Championships.

On the club level, Krutov played for CSKA Moscow from 1978 to 1989. He was one of the first Soviet players to make the jump to the NHL, doing so with the Vancouver Canucks in 1989. However, Krutov did not have a successful season, battling homesickness and weight problems.

Krutov left the NHL after his lone season in North America and played for a number of smaller clubs before retiring to move into coaching. His son Alexei Krutov is also a hockey player and currently plays for Avtomobilist Yekaterinburg of the Kontinental Hockey League.

In 2010, he was inducted into the International Ice Hockey Federation Hall of Fame.

Krutov died in a hospital in Moscow on 6 June 2012, of internal bleeding and liver failure, just five days after his 52nd birthday.