The Amazing Invisible Captain: Alexei Yashin

Q: Who makes $7.6* million a season, dates a former supermodel, and disappears the moment the playoffs start?

A: Alexei Valeryevich Yashin

It looks like Isles coach Ted Nolan has already had enough of Yashin's floaty ways and has quickly demoted his captain:

Nolan busted Yashin, 33, down to centre on the fourth line halfway through the first period of the Eastern Conference quarter-final game. Yashin played between Richard Park and Andy Hilbert, while Richard Zednik was promoted to Yashin's spot with centre Viktor Kozlov and right winger Miroslav Satan. Yashin barely got off the bench in the third period.

Yashin played 7 minutes, 7 seconds in Saturday's game, the least amount of ice time of anyone on the team except for backup goaltender Wade Dubielewicz. But it is richly deserved.

Kapitan Ka$hin has always had a reputation as a player who has disappeared the moment the regular season paycheques stop coming, and he's doing nothing this postseason to improve on that. With just 10:21 in ice time per game in this series (0 points in those 3 games), Yashin finds himself behind such superstars as Aaron Asham, Trent Hunter, and Randy Robitaille. I guess being the highest paid player on the team and having the captain's 'C' isn't enough to motivate the guy. What is?

All I know is that playoff games involve turning up the intensity a few notches and skating faster and harder. Yashin, on the other hand, is a player that has always relied on his brains and great stickhandling ability, rather than speed and hustle. In the regular season, it's easy enough for him to get time and space with the puck and float around looking for open spaces. In the playoffs, both of these elements are hard to find, and Yashin does not work harder to compensate.

If I were Nolan, I would have stripped Yashin of the C much earlier and given it to somebody like Mike Sillinger, who actually gives an honest effort most every night.