Two-time KHL champion team Ak Bars Kazan has signed wing Janne Lahti, a member of the Finnish team that won last year’s world championship, the Russian team said Wednesday.
Lahti signed a one-year contract with the NHL’s Montreal Canadiens in 2007, but did not get any playing time and ended up spending the season at Montreal’s AHL affiliate.
“The Ak Bars hockey club has signed a contract with the 30-year-old Finnish forward Janne Lahti,” the team said in a website statement, without specifying the length of the contract.
Lahti will probably be the Kazan-based team’s last signing of the off-season, coach Valery Belov said Wednesday at a media conference to unveil Lahti and Ak Bars’ six other signings of the summer, including Russia national team goaltender Konstantin Barulin.
“As of today we have who we have. We’re not looking for anyone,” Belov said.
“The question of selection is always open but we’re not looking for anyone more.”
Ak Bars president Shamil Khusnutdinov said that the team would target a Gagarin Cup win, its first since 2010, when the new season gets under way next month.
“Our task is always the maximum,” he said.
Khusnutdinov added that team vice-president Ravil Shavaleev was recovering slowly from a broken pelvis he sustained in May when he fell from a third-floor window at a hospital where he was undergoing tests.
