Andrei Kostitsyn
Belarusian ice hockey player
Andrei Olegovich Kostitsyn (Belarusian: Андрэй Алегавiч Касціцын, romanized: Andrej Alehavič Kascicyn; Russian: Андрей Олегович Костицын; born 3 February 1985) is a former Belarusian professional ice hockey forward.
The media have nicknamed him "AK-46", a play on his initials (AK) and player number (46) in reference to the Soviet AK-47 rifle. He and his younger brother Sergei played together on the Montreal Canadiens and Nashville Predators.
Playing career
Europe
Beginning in 2000–01, Kostitsyn spent the first two seasons of his early career with Polimir Novopolotsk, competing in several leagues, including the Eastern European Hockey League (EEHL). In the summer of 2002, he signed with CSKA Moscow and moved to Russia. He split his time with the organization between CSKA 2 of Russia's developmental league, and also continued to play in the Belarusian league with Yunost Minsk.
After his first season with CSKA, he was selected by the Montreal Canadiens in the first round, tenth overall, of the 2003 NHL entry draft. Kostitsyn drew favourable scouting reports from his strong showing at the 2003 World U-18 Championships and was expected to be taken even higher in the draft; it is speculated that health concerns with his back caused teams to pass him over.
Montreal Canadiens
In the summer of 2004, he was invited to the Canadiens' training camp and signed a three-year deal with the club. He was subsequently assigned to the Canadiens' American Hockey League (AHL) affiliate, the Hamilton Bulldogs, for the 2004–05 season.
“Andrei Kostitsyn” enters the record as belarusian ice hockey player. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Andrei, Kostitsyn and Belarusian can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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“Andrei Kostitsyn” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Andrei, Kostitsyn and Belarusian provides the most credible route into that argument.
The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 27, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q502878. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1985, 2000, 2002 and 2003.
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This entry incorporates text from “Andrei Kostitsyn” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.