By Joe Starkey

  Penguins defenseman Darius Kasparaitis has a hero and a friend in New Jersey Devils assistant coach Viacheslav Fetisov. 

  Fetisov was one of the greatest players in the grand history of the dynamic Soviet Union teams. He joined the Devils in 1989 as one of the first Eastern Europeans to crack the NHL ranks. 

  "He was one of the first players who came here and got all the pressure, Kasparaitis said. "I talk to him a lot and ask his advice. He's one of the big heroes in Russia." 

  Kasparaitis played in Fetisov's farewell game Aug. 25 in Moscow. Fetisov turned the game into a fund-raiser for families of the crew that perished in the Kursk submarine disaster. All 17,000 tickets for the event were sold. Pavel Bure, Igor Larionov, Martin Brodeur and Scott Stevens were among the NHL players who participated. 

  "Playing in that game, I was very proud of that," Kasparaitis said. "When I was little, I wanted to be like him. Every time you watched TV, you saw the Central Red Army team playing. Fetisov and all the units of five were one of the best in the world. I was very fortunate to see him play, coach and hang out with him in the off-season in New York. We go on vacations a lot. We went to the Bahamas and Puerto Rico."