The first highlight would be the way Alexei approached the draft he did not go in person and in all honesty was not expecting to be drafted yet he still sat there with his parents Vasily and Sophia in their modest home in St. Petersburg to watch the draft. Suddenly before the fifth round of the draft started, he got a call to which his father picked up and confused handed the phone over to Alexei who was surprised to hear, and English-speaking voice ask if he was interested in playing for Montreal. After that everything is history as he was excited and was even more surprised as word quickly spread and local media showed up making him quite the local celebrity before he flew out to Canada with his family to sign his paperwork.

The second highlight would the third game on the Montreal calendar against the Vancouver Whalers where not Alexei showed his amazing talent scoring two goals in the first period with the last goal being on the power play and the game winning goal. Later Alexei would remark in an interview that he hoped his father would not be too upset he didn’t manage to make an assist in the game which led to a chuckle from the interviewer even though it made Alexei look even more miserable.

The third highlight would be Game 113 of the schedule with Montreal versus Lethbridge where a usually calm Alexei found himself infuriated after a rash of penalties in the first period and during the end of his first shift on the second period proceeded to wallop a Lethbridge player leading to him being boxed for a highsticking penalty. One of his more aggressive and last penalties of the season.