WC: 2015 — Team Russia

[Alessandro Seren Rosso]

Bykov deteriorated the longer his tenure went on. His team went ultra passive defensively because that was his only response to Jukka Jalonen's Team Finland's puck possession game.

I haven't said BRING BACK BYKOV 111!!!

 

[Alessandro Seren Rosso]

The defense is fine. It's ho-hum but adequate enough if the offense shows up.
We lost because our 'big guns' were total garbage. Malkin, Kovalchuk, Tarasenko, Mozyakin all played like low level AHLers. The only guys who showed up were Panarin-Shipachyov-Dadonov.

What about letting Tarasenko play?
Tikhonov and Malkin shouldn't be on this team, IMHO. I thought that Tikhonov's call up was a reward to him that he truly deserved, but then he wouldn't make the team, yet he's there...
Malkin's will to play is admirable, but he looks 50 years old. He should rest.

 

[Atas2000]

Underestimate an opponent and see what can potentially happen.

Not that again. Nobody is underestimating anybody. That's some new mantra Russia's opponents invented. Russia has a bad roster. Period.

edit: as I mentioned the Dallas Stars are a good comparison. Good offence. Awful defence. An injury here and there. That concept isn't going anywhere, just like the Stars.

 

[Atas2000]

How does Tarasenko looked yesterday? two games and something like -4 rating..

Still jetlagged.

 

[Atas2000]

Bragin. He's boss.

Don't overhype Bragin. He has his weaknesses. Actually I would like Bragin as a head coach, but he needs a level headed assistant to do the dirty work. Bragin is a great motivator. He sometimes lacks the basics of strategy.

AND we will have to wait until the boys grow up for Bragin. He can only lead the team of guys who played for him in juniors IMHO.

 

[Alessandro Seren Rosso]

Don't overhype Bragin. He has his weaknesses. Actually I would like Bragin as ahead coach, but he needs a level headed assistant to do the dirty work. Bragin is a great motivator. He sometimes lacks teh basics of strategy.

AND we will have to wait until the boys grow up for Bragin. He can only lead the team of guys who played for him in juniors IMHO.

Agreed

 

[od71]

don't know what to do to cry or to laugh. Znarok changed lines on practice, he switched Kovy and Tarasenko.
Now Kovy is training with Tikhonov Shirokov,
Tarasenko with Anisimov Plotnikov.
Znarok doesn't even care that Kovy is LW, Tarasenko is RW

 

[Jussi]

I haven't said BRING BACK BYKOV 111!!!

Neither did I!!!!11!!1!!

 

[Yakushev72]

Are you serious, is it for real? Well, I don´t know about you guys, but I think this tournament is more hopeless for us than in 2011 and 2013, way too many injuries, making us fill out all spots with players that our coach didn´t intend to use in the first place.
I didn´t even we would do bad in 2011 and 2013 this early into a tournament before, but this time it feels really bad. Ovechkin won´t solve it on his own.

I was as discouraged as anyone after yesterday's performance, but it is premature to bury the team yet. Yesterday was useful in pinpointing what the real problems are, which is the first step toward trying to solve them. Obviously, any chance of success will require a much better offensive effort than we had yesterday. Malkin and Tarasenko have to transition on to the team, and Kovalchuk has to start living up to his hype. If Medvedev could reduce his air-headed mistakes even 50%, that alone would be a huge step.

Despite the lack of hype, Team USA has clearly proven that they are one of the top 3 teams in the tournament. Russia can play much better than they did yesterday, but I think the USA had their best possible effort yesterday. If they played again, I would put all my money on Russia! A lot can happen to a team between now and May 17, and I still have hopes that Russia can be a much better team by then!

 

[Wings4Life]

I was as discouraged as anyone after yesterday's performance, but it is premature to bury the team yet. Yesterday was useful in pinpointing what the real problems are, which is the first step toward trying to solve them. Obviously, any chance of success will require a much better offensive effort than we had yesterday. Malkin and Tarasenko have to transition on to the team, and Kovalchuk has to start living up to his hype.

Nah, the fault lies with this moron of a head coach. Mozyakin-Malkin-Kulemin obviously does not work at NT level/work anymore, yet he keeps going back to it, even on the powerplay. Tarasenko too little icetime, Kovy isolated playing with inferior players.

You could make a monster line of Kovy-Malkin-Tarasenko, and worst case, have two guaranteed lines to produce. Try to make a decent thir line out of the rest. But instead, we only have 1 decent line...and it looks like the old drunk Znarok has yet to learn his lesson, if od71's post is true, and the only line change was Kovy/Tarasenko.

 

[BlitzSnipe]

I think one of the problems in the Russian offence is that the players are too 'individualistic' - Malkin, Tarasenko, and Kovalchuk - all of them superstars, and I think putting them together would make the egos rub, everyone would try to prove they're better and no one would pass the puck. A lot of Russian players are trying to make the beautiful move, to do the special deke, to make works of art out of goals. Now, this is one of the beauties of hockey, but the team needs wins right now, so they need to focus on shooting the puck more.

The Panarin line has been the only line that has consistently played well and been problematic for the opposition. That is the line you put as the 1st line on your powerplay. I was surprised Znarok put the Malkin line during the last minutes, since the Panarin line has obviously been more effective.

 

[jimstark]

Why all this negativ feelings for Znarok ?

He led them to gold last year with only wins and this is just one bad game
Lets see what happen..after all its the players who need to step up and lets be hones yesterdays game was really really bad regarding the effort from the Russian

A swedish reporter said the Russian looked dead tired and not so much interested until the last 5 minutes (thats when Malkin showed some life )
Malkin is the best player in the world in my eyes and need to step it up and be a leader its that simple.
Get the other 3 lines going and we have a team

I am postive and looking at the most of the game today in reply we could have had a few more goals despite playing very bad and the outcome would be victory tough a bad victory since the play was really bad
Its just one game and we will beat this US team 9 out of 10 games

 

[Yakushev72]

Nah, the fault lies with this moron of a head coach. Mozyakin-Malkin-Kulemin obviously does not work at NT level/work anymore, yet he keeps going back to it, even on the powerplay. Tarasenko too little icetime, Kovy isolated playing with inferior players.

You could make a monster line of Kovy-Malkin-Tarasenko, and worst case, have two guaranteed lines to produce. Try to make a decent thir line out of the rest. But instead, we only have 1 decent line...and it looks like the old drunk Znarok has yet to learn his lesson, if od71's post is true, and the only line change was Kovy/Tarasenko.

He has only 1 loss in the last 2 years, so maybe the "moron" label is a little harsh at this point! Its not easy to form lines from guys who may never have played together. Lets see what adjustments he makes.

 

[Proust*]

JONES Seth
FAULK Justin
KRUG Torey
GARDINER Jake

Are you kidding me?

All known for offensive skills only. Russia's forwards should have eaten that group alive.

 

[Yakushev72]

Whats with all that "worst defense of all time" talk?

Last year there was pretty much the same core.

Belov, Chudinov, Medvedev all were there.+ this year you have Kulikov (And No, Atas, just no way Zadorov is better than Kulikov atm).

Isn't the problem that Russia scored only two goals?

I mean, ok, lets say USA has a much better D than Russia. But still, their 3rd best D-man is Torey Krug, and he is a far from a defensive stud.

I had plans to watch the game later, to enjoy how Russia is destroying USA with their offense.. Another day, I guess.

In their own end, the US parked 3 guys in a diamond formation just outside the goal crease. They surrendered the outside to pack everyone down low. The Russian team didn't play with the energy needed to try to force bodies into the crease. They will have to do that, because other teams will do the same thing. The USA played a game they will probably never duplicate against a comparable quality team (although they had no trouble whatsoever from Finland), because they had nothing to lose - everyone looked at their roster and concluded they had no chance. Russia is used to playing against teams that hate them and have nothing to lose against them, but they usually do a better job than they did yesterday.

 

[Fantomas]

Don't overhype Bragin. He has his weaknesses. Actually I would like Bragin as a head coach, but he needs a level headed assistant to do the dirty work. Bragin is a great motivator. He sometimes lacks the basics of strategy.

AND we will have to wait until the boys grow up for Bragin. He can only lead the team of guys who played for him in juniors IMHO.

Bragin can certainly motivate the boys and probably intimidate them at times. A harder task to accomplish with the millionaires, granted.

 

[Atas2000]

All known for offensive skills only. Russia's forwards should have eaten that group alive.

it's not about forwards. it's about the russian D. it worse, much worse than that. also you don't seem to realize the difference of the rink size. mobile D-men, who may only work as OD on the small rink may well be efficient on the bigger surface.

 

[kp61c]

Bragin. He's boss.

yeah, his teams tend to spend all free time in their own zone while desperately hoping for some lucky bounce to go their way. he's a boss all right

 

[OG]

All known for offensive skills only. Russia's forwards should have eaten that group alive.

You're wrong.

 

[Fantomas]

yeah, his teams tend to spend all free time in their own zone while desperately hoping for some lucky bounce to go their way. he's a boss all right

Constantly ices the hardest working teams. I would like to see him hired.

Obviously we should caution to not think of Bragin as the magic solution. What goes up must go down.

 

[Elvs]

All known for offensive skills only.

Faulk plays over 24 minutes per game for the Hurricanes. He dished out 157 hits the past season. He averages two minutes per game on the penalty kill.

Seth Jones is a 2-way guy who plays 1.40/game on the PK.

I'll give you Gardiner and Krug, but both are great skaters and poised with the puck in the defensive zone. Actually, Gardiner played a shut down role at the world juniors and won a gold medal doing so. I'm not a big fan of +/-, but Krug was a +13 this season. Only him and Kevan Miller was on the + side among Bruins defenders.

John Moore is also solid defensively and a great skater.

 

[Primo Victoria]

Any idea of the Russian PP-units?

 

[Thegreatwar]

Russian coaches seem to be getting a lot of flak. Were they this bad during the Soviet era, or have they struggled to adapt to the changed hockey world?

 

[Proust*]

it's not about forwards. it's about the russian D. it worse, much worse than that. also you don't seem to realize the difference of the rink size. mobile D-men, who may only work as OD on the small rink may well be efficient on the bigger surface.

I would think the bigger ice would also provide an advantage to slick forwards like Tarasenko, Malkin and Kovalchuk ;-)

 

[Jussi]

I was as discouraged as anyone after yesterday's performance, but it is premature to bury the team yet. Yesterday was useful in pinpointing what the real problems are, which is the first step toward trying to solve them. Obviously, any chance of success will require a much better offensive effort than we had yesterday. Malkin and Tarasenko have to transition on to the team, and Kovalchuk has to start living up to his hype. If Medvedev could reduce his air-headed mistakes even 50%, that alone would be a huge step.

Despite the lack of hype, Team USA has clearly proven that they are one of the top 3 teams in the tournament. Russia can play much better than they did yesterday, but I think the USA had their best possible effort yesterday. If they played again, I would put all my money on Russia! A lot can happen to a team between now and May 17, and I still have hopes that Russia can be a much better team by then!

Could it be that Znarok's true capabilities as a national team coach have yet to be witnessed? I mean, let's be reality, he was basically handed the gold last year when Russia had almost all the NHL stars while the rest had few.