2014 team defense vs. 1976 Canada Cup team defense
- Thread starter Big Phil
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JackSlater
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- Apr 27, 2010
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1976 defence is better. 2014 was a better defensive team because the forwards and defencemen were so in sync that they smothered teams all over the ice. 1975 had Orr at the very end of his prime, Potvin at the beginning of his, and the Montreal trio all near their best. Orr and Potvin at that point were still better than Weber and Doughty today, Robinson at the time was better than Keith today, and so on down the list. As a unit this group did play better than any Canadian defence since 1976 though.
I agree, the forwards in cohesion with the d in 2014 was unbelievable. The whole team played as such a unit and really did smother all-comers. I would say this 2014 Team Canada played the most mature, seasoned and polished hockey consistently more than any team I can put my finger on. Definitely the most dominant overall performance compared to their competition in a best on best tournament in a long long time.
easily, EASILY 1976...But game was played on small ice, and in a different era...which affected scoring totals...Also , even though the Russians were missing a few of their top guns...Overall the opposition team Canada 1976 faced... just talking about the top teams, Rus, Cze Sweden ( Finns, and Yanks weren't much in those days )... Salming, Stastny brothers, yadda yadda ...were better in that tourney, than this years OG's IMO.
tony d
New poll series coming from me in June
Yeah, give me the 1976 defense, that's more an indication of how good the 1976 defense was than anything else.
ToewsGretzky*
Registered User
In terms of the black and white numbers, Team Canada 2014 was unequivocally the greatest defensive performance by a Canadian national team in our history, period. That team will be used as a model for Canadian teams to replicate for decades to come. I wouldn't doubt if the coaching staff at the WC makes the team watch hours of footage of the team, I've never seen such dedication to team defence, they kinda looked like how Finland defends as a team.
Theokritos
Global Moderator
- Apr 6, 2010
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Not to dispute anything else you said, but black and white numbers are also depending on the opponents and their quality. With stronger opponents the numbers might not look as great.
ToewsGretzky*
Registered User
I'm just curious but stronger opponents? like who? Canada shutout the highest scoring team in the tournament and defending silver medalists the US, and then shutout Sweden who is ranked #1 by the IIHF and held Bronze medalists Finland to just 1, the US, Finland and Sweden are three of the worlds biggest hockey powers and 3 combined scored 1 goal on Canada. Hard to find teams with more quality than those..
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Yeah but the 1976 Czech lineup, the Russian lineup and the Swede lineup were BETTER, than any of those 3 teams...seriously the OG Finns and Swedes were missing guys, BIG Time...Heck even before we get to the others, on the squad, let's just start with the Stastny bothers who did OG Swedes or Finns have that compares? ...an aging Teemu Selanne ?
Theokritos
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I don't think it's hard in a historical comparison. Sweden doesn't have the depth to compensate for the loss of its three top centers, Finland had an relatively underwhelming roster from the go and the USA too had better teams before. In earlier tournaments Team Canada had to play against opponents of a higher calibre like the Soviets or 1996 Team USA and they had to play them multiple times in the Canada Cup/World Cup. The Sochi Team was never put to the test like that.
VMBM
Hansel?!
Yeah but the 1976 Czech lineup, the Russian lineup and the Swede lineup were BETTER, than any of those 3 teams...seriously the OG Finns and Swedes were missing guys, BIG Time...Heck even before we get to the others, on the squad, let's just start with the Stastny bothers who did OG Swedes or Finns have that compares? ...an aging Teemu Selanne ?
19-20 year old Peter Stastny, who scored 4 assists in 7 games (only 7th on his OWN TEAM) in the 1976 CC, or - as you said - an aging Teemu Selänne, who scored 4 + 2 in the 2014 OG (7th in the tournament) and was an all-star and the tournament MVP? Hmmm, I'd take Selänne, big time. And I'll take him over Marian Stastny of '76 too.
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So Selanne had two more points than Peter BIG WOOP
But consider this...( as per my earlier point ) the opposition they played against weren't the same, eh?
Moreover, two of Selanne’s four goals came against Yanks, a team not only emotionally but physically spent. Unlike Suomi , who I felt had a distinct advantage, Yanks played late game vs Canada, with less than 24 hours turnaround time...That's just not long enough IMO...IIHF needs to prevent a repeat of that going forward if they expect fans in NA ( many of whom, OG or not, don't think much of loser medals for best on best hockey tourneys anyway) to take Bronze games seriously
But getting back to my original point... 3 ( THREE ! ) of the games Peter Stastny et al played were against Canada’s ALL TIME GREATEST D...
I mentioned the Stastny bros partly since most here in NA would be most familiar with them...Peter was great but Anton and Marian were good in their own right ( and I mentioned Salming in connection with team Swede 76 for similar reason ).
Czechoslovaks won 1976 WHC ( CCCP 2nd, Swe 3rd ), and that was during CCCP's heyday. Here’s the 1976 CC Czechoslovakia roster, good luck arguing that injury riddled 2014 Suomi or Tre Kronor lineups were better
Forwards and Defense: Josef Augusta, Jir(à Bubla, František CernÃk, Milan Chalupa, Miroslav Dvor(ák, Bohuslav Ebermann, Ivan Hlinka, Jirà HolÃk, Karel Holý, František Kaberle, Milan Kajkl, Oldr(ich Machac, VladimÃr Martinec, Jirà Novák, Milan Nový, František PospÚil, Jaroslav Pouzar, Pavel Richter, VladimÃr ŠÃ¡ndrÃk, Bohuslav Štastný, Marián Štastný, Peter Štastný
Goaltenders: VladimÃr Dzurilla, Jir(Ã Holecek
Edit: Hmmm...seems brother Anton wasn't on team, earlier I was just going from memory,
Here’s 1976 Swede roster
Forwards and Defense: Mats Åhlberg, Thommie Bergman, Per-Olov Brasar, Lars-Erik Eriksson, Roland Eriksson, Lars-Erik Esbjörs, Inge Hammarström, Anders Hedberg, Björn Johansson, Dan Labraaten, Willy Lindström, Tord Lundström, Lars-Göran Nilsson, Ulf Nilsson, Stig Östling, Börje Salming, Stig Salming, Lars-Erik Sjöberg, Jan-Olov Svensson, Mats Waltin, Juha Widing, Kjell-Arne Wikström
Goaltenders: Hardy Åström, Göran Högosta, William Löfqvist
Here’s 1976 CCCP Roster ( admittedly missing a few top guns ) but still formidable
Forwards and Defense: Boris Alexandrov, Sergei Babinov, Helmut Balderis, Valeri Belousov, Zinetula Bilyaletdinov, Aleksandr Golikov, Alexander Gusev, Sergei Kapustin, Vladimir Kovin, Vladimir Krikunov, Aleksandr Kulikov, Viktor Kuznetsov, Yuri Lebedev, Vladimir Lutchenko, Alexander Maltsev, Vladimir Repnev, Viktor Shalimov, Aleksandr Skvortsov, Valeri Vasiliev, Vladimir Vikulov, Viktor Zhluktov
Goaltenders: Vladislav Tretiak, Mihails Vasil,onoks, Viktor Zinge
Even the 1976 USA and Finland Rosters ( Suomi, pretty much got clobbered by everybody ! ) were better than the likes of OG Latvia, Norway, Slovenia, Austria ( sorry can’t remember all OG minnows, nor who played who, + too lazy to look it up )
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VMBM
Hansel?!
Whatever, I'm not taking any sides in this debate. I just think that the young Peter and Marian Stastny weren't exactly the top Czechoslovak forwards in the 1976 Canada Cup and that you are underestimating Selänne's performance somewhat. I would take e.g. the '76 Milan Novy and Vladimir Martinec over the 2014 Selänne, though.
Soviet Union lost to Poland (!) 4-6 in the 1976 World Championships, that's how good they were in that tournament! They also lost to Sweden once and lost to and tied with Czechoslovakia for a 6-3-1 record. 1976-77 were not among USSR's vintage years/seasons, but Czechoslovakia did have very good team(s) throughout the 1970s, no question about that.
Before the 1976 Canada Cup, Valeri Kharlamov was badly injured in a car accident and couldn't play in the tournament. Also, there was apparently a power struggle between coaches Boris Kulagin and Viktor Tikhonov, and as an unfortunate result, many of USSR's top players were left home; Mikhailov, Petrov, Shadrin, Yakushev, (Tsygankov)... basically their 1st and 2nd lines at the time. Viktor Shalimov, one of their biggest guns, was injured already in the first game vs. CSSR and couldn't play after that.
However, I would take Alexander Maltsev, Helmuts Balderis and maybe Sergei Kapustin over the 43-year old Selänne.
Yes, I recalled from memory that RUS 1976 were missing guys, and mentioned it a couple times in this thread...NB*: I also recall that Tretriak mentions this in his book, not by way of excuses, but that CCCP players were told going into that CC, that 3rd place would be an acceptable result, insofar as the Rus hockey federation was concerned, and he ( paraphrasing Tretriak ) being a fierce competitor, was none to happy with that mindset
Anyway, missing guys or not, CCCP still had a formidable team...as did again Czechs & Swedes . Ergo, the strength of competition the two versions of T.C. faced ( which I argued was better in 76, than 2014 ) should be factored into the equation rather than just comparing dry stats, as some here seemed want to do...That was my most salient point
Big Phil
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- Nov 2, 2003
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I agree with you, and the forwards as well bought into the whole system. Not that they trapped, quite the opposite, they just had the puck all the time and every time - EVERY TIME - there was a loose puck in front of the net a Canadian picked it up. You don't see that often.
One thing the 2014 team has under their belt is the fact that they were never trailing in a game. Not once. Team Canada 1976 is actually awfully close to that though. While they lost that tight 1-0 game to the Czechs in the round robin, the truth is they were only trailing in the tournament twice both times against the Czechs. The round robin game the Czechs scored with 4:19 remaining. Other than that, it was just Game 2 of the final against the Czechs. The Canadians seemingly on their way to victory late in the game had the Czechs tie it up and then a minute later get the go-ahead goal. Bill Barber tied it up 1:48 later, and then of course won in overtime.
Overall this is how it looks with the time of the team trailing:
2014 - 0:00 trailing
1976 - 5:07 trailing
Honestly, that's pretty darn close. Team Canada 1976 was still very much a team that was in control the whole time, all but 5 minutes of it. So chalk that up to great defenses. However, I am guessing from an individual standpoint that only Weber, Doughty, Keith and Subban make the HHOF, while 1976 has 5 members of the defense.
Interesting to note, the 2004 World Cup team is the only other team to never trail in a best on best tournament. Believe it or not the 1991 Canada Cup team was only trailing for a total of 21 minutes, all in the same game in a 3-3 tie against the Czechs. So you don't see this happen very often. Makes you appreciate 1976 and especially 2014 even more.
Hammer Time
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I believe in the 1976 Canada Cup, Jimmy Watson got injured early and Canada went the rest of the tournament with 5 defencemen (Orr, Potvin, Lapointe, Savard, Robinson). Also that was a small ice tournament which is normally less favourable to defence. And Bobby Orr was playing through a knee injury. Given the additional difficulties, I would consider 1976 more impressive, although 2014 was definitely an absolutely stunning defensive performance.
Even though Orr got the MVP Potvin played way better. I watched the games on DVD and Potvin was fantastic.
Without remembering specifics about the other teams, one thing I really appriciate with the 2014 team is that they played a game almost completly within even, the written rules of the game.
No dangerous plays, a whole team staying out of the penaltybox, playing "Lady Byng" worthy hockey and still schooling the opposition with a relentless game.
Thats excellence to me!
No dangerous plays, a whole team staying out of the penaltybox, playing "Lady Byng" worthy hockey and still schooling the opposition with a relentless game.
Thats excellence to me!
The 1976 group gets the nod on name value or career accomplishments for sure but I'm not sure they played as such a cohesive unit like 2014 guys did.
Never seen a replay of any 1976 CC games, BUT I watched the original tourney from start to finish ! Dont recall Potvin outshining Orr . Think #4's MVP was fairly won. However, I do recall Potvin complaining, after CC, in a Canadian national magazine interview, that Orr got all the kudos, while he ( Denis ) played just as good. To me, the origins of the Orr vs Potvin in 1976 CC debate, stems from that whiney *&!! interview, for which he ( Denis ) got plenty of flack and rightly so...
Having said that....I've always maintained that Potvin was the second best Dman I ever saw play...That Guy's seriously underrated on HFBoards IMO
Steveorama
Registered User
Potvin was amazing in that series.
But Bobby Orr was the best player.
I remember a Czech vet getting interviewed about 20 years ago, asked what was the greatest thing he ever saw, in all his years of international hockey.
He said "Bobby Orr". And he only saw Orr playing on one leg in 1976.
That is how good Bobby Orr was.
Playing at half-speed, still considered the greatest ever.
But Bobby Orr was the best player.
I remember a Czech vet getting interviewed about 20 years ago, asked what was the greatest thing he ever saw, in all his years of international hockey.
He said "Bobby Orr". And he only saw Orr playing on one leg in 1976.
That is how good Bobby Orr was.
Playing at half-speed, still considered the greatest ever.
Hammer Time
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Laineux
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In these past (decades) vs present threads it should always be defined if we're talking about level compared to the time or absolute level.
On an absolute scale, there's no question that '14 defence is better in almost any way imaginable. Hockey has come quite a far away as a game.
On an absolute scale, there's no question that '14 defence is better in almost any way imaginable. Hockey has come quite a far away as a game.
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