Olympics-Semin replaces injured Soin in Russian ice hockey squad

MOSCOW, Jan 21 (Reuters) - Aleksander Semin has been called up to Russia's Olympic ice hockey squad after Sergei Soin pulled out with a knee injury on Tuesday. Soin damaged his anterior cruciate ligament in Dynamo Moscow's defeat against SKA St Petersburg in the KHL and is only set to return to action at the end of February. Carolina Hurricanes forward Semin was surprisingly been left off head coach Zinetula Bilyaletdinov's original roster with Soin selected for his defensive abilities. "We were really counting on him and he was called up to perform specific tasks," Bilyaletdinov said "It is a loss for the national team. In terms of Aleksander Semin, we had an initial agreement that he could be called-up to the team. We have already been in contact with him and spoken to him and Aleksander will play for Russia at the Olympic games." (Reporting by Dmitriy Rogovitskiy; Editing by Justin Palmer)