MOSCOW (AP) — Vladimir Krutov, one of the Soviet Union’s all-time great ice hockey players and part of the national team’s formidable KLM Line, has died. He was 52.
The Russian Hockey Federation said Krutov died Wednesday. It did not give a cause of death, but the ITAR-Tass news agency said he had been taken to a hospital several days earlier for stomach bleeding.
Krutov and his CSKA Moscow teammates Igor Larionov and Sergei Makarov formed one of the most potent scoring lines that hockey has ever seen, and led the Soviet team to gold in the 1984 and 1988 Olympics.
He was one of the first Soviet players to play in the NHL, but spent only a single undistinguished season with the Vancouver Canucks. He later played for Swedish lower-league clubs Ostersund and Brunflo, and coached CSKA for one season in 2001-02.
