Evgeny Artyukhin

Junior Career

Artyukhin, the son of a Greco-Roman wrestling champion, began his career with Vityaz Podolsk in Russia in 1999-2000 spending most of that season with the club's 1st (Farm) League team. In 2000-2001 he became a regular on the team's 4th line at the Upper League level and a fixture on the Russian national team's 1983 born junior tournament teams including the 2001 U-18 World Junior Championships which was scouted extensively by the Tampa Bay Lightning. That summer the team selected him early in the 3rd round of the 2001 Entry Draft. The following season he showed marked improvement in the Superleague notching 15 goals and 22 points in 49 games. At the 2002 QMJHL Import Draft Artyukhin was selected in the 2nd round, 29th overall, by the Moncton Wildcats and made the decision to move to North America. Artyukhin put up modest numbers with Moncton while learning English and how to cope with the smaller rink size. Artyukhin did, however, quickly earn a reputation as a nasty physical player including a suspension for beating an opponent with his own helmet. That year, Artyukhin was selected to play for Russia in the U-20 World Junior Championships in Halifax where the team earned gold with Artyukhin playing a checking line role.

Professional Career

The Lightning signed Evgeny Artyukhin in the summer of 2003 and assigned him to their split affiliate in Hershey of the AHL. Unfortunately, because of the affiliation situation, Artyukhin's development was minimal with Hershey and he played just 28 games between Hershey and Pensacola of the ECHL all year. It wasn't until the lockout season of 2004-2005 when the Lightning secured a full affiliation with Springfield of the AHL that Evgeny finally began to develop. After a slow first half of the year Artyukhin was red hot down the stretch of the season forming a potent duo with veteran center Jason Jaspers. In his final eight games of the season he had 3 goals and 12 points for the Falcons. When the lockout lifted in the summer of 2005 Artyukhin was able to attend his second full training camp with the Lightning from whoch he was the last forward cut. After being reassigned to Springfield on October 1st, 2005 Artyukhin had 3 points in 4 games with the Falcons before being recalled to Tampa on October 19th. The following day he played his first NHL game against the Atlanta Thrashers. On October 26th he scored his first point against the New Jersey Devils. On November 5th he scored his first NHL goal against the Toronto Maple Leafs.