I'm not arguing Richard > Ovechkin. Though it's pretty darn close, indeed because of Richard's playoff resume.
Richard is at worst the 3rd best goal scorer pre-1967.
People like to bring up intangibles. Rocket had them.
How come the Russians are so low ranked in the all time lists?
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Richard is at worst the 3rd best goal scorer pre-1967.
People like to bring up intangibles. Rocket had them.
Sentinel
Registered User
OK, at least you are not arguing R > O. Because to many people that's a given.
And Ovechkin is at worst the 3rd best goal scorer EVER.
That's why I said "French Canadian legend."
he also has the 15th best career PPG of all time for now, you just can't omit that especially considering the era in which he played.
And also, his CS is not just your usual CS (there is one CS winner every year after all), it's probably the best CS run of all time behind Greztsky and Lemieux's runs.
I you watch the NHL before Europeans started joining you can see that the average level of NHL players was very very low. Lots of skating lumberjacks with sticks. Sure, there were Gretzky and Lemieux, some other talented players. It all happened due to the amount of hockey players that were coming out of Canada so naturally there would be some extreme talents coming out of that system. I say all pre-1990 NHLers are a bit overrated. Gretzky was putting up the numbers because there were no good goalies and most D-men were a bunch of pylons. Watch the videos - this is all on youtube.
They're ranked lower because it propagates the notion that the NHL and Canada were always the pinnacle entities in hockey, far ahead of everybody else.
But true greatness is unmistakable. There's an electricity to it. All you need is the eye test.
Russia/Soviet Union never had anybody on Orr, Gretzky, Howe or Lemieux's level, but they've had guys in the next tier. Tretiak, Fetisov, Makarov, Ovechkin, Kharlamov, etc.
And I'll never downgrade those first generation NHLrs based on NHL performance. Those guys were pioneers. The transition was probably like landing on the moon. How could it not affect on ice performance, particularly at an older age? Can we conceive the opposite? Just imagine a 30-something Mario Lemieux dropped in Soviet Moscow under Tikhonov. I don't think Mario had the personality required to survive such a scenario. Yet we downgrade Krutov for his North American debacle?
But true greatness is unmistakable. There's an electricity to it. All you need is the eye test.
Russia/Soviet Union never had anybody on Orr, Gretzky, Howe or Lemieux's level, but they've had guys in the next tier. Tretiak, Fetisov, Makarov, Ovechkin, Kharlamov, etc.
And I'll never downgrade those first generation NHLrs based on NHL performance. Those guys were pioneers. The transition was probably like landing on the moon. How could it not affect on ice performance, particularly at an older age? Can we conceive the opposite? Just imagine a 30-something Mario Lemieux dropped in Soviet Moscow under Tikhonov. I don't think Mario had the personality required to survive such a scenario. Yet we downgrade Krutov for his North American debacle?
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Show me one Soviet who dominated the RSL (or whatever it was called back then) the way Gretzky or Lemieux did.
Scandale du Jour
JordanStaal#1Fan
Show me one Soviet who dominated the RSL (or whatever it was called back then) the way Gretzky or Lemieux did.
That's unfair.
Their style of play and system were not build to maximize one individual.
Units of five.
newfy
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And you would be wrong.Gretzky played against the same goalies and dmen as every other player in the league and completely lapped them without it being close at all. He was old, with a bad back and still finishing top 4 in scoring even with Europeans in the league. In the middle of his prime, 26 year old, art ross Jagr beat him in scoring by like ten points and Jagr is a guy who people consider a top 10 player of all time. Gretzky was almost 40 when that happened
And even with that, if anyone was close to Gretzky they would've been noticeably more dominant than what any of them were in international tournaments or when they came to the NHL. Anyone trying to say there were soviet players comparable to Gretzky (forget about better) is completely idiotic
Stephen
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Actually what was unfair was the fact that CSKA Moscow won 32 out of 46 regular season titles and 13 in a row in the 70s and 80s and was the de facto Soviet National Team. Moscow Dynamo came in second with 5 titles, 3 of them at the very end of the USSR, so you're basically talking about the equivalent of a Team Canada All-Star Team taking the remaining NHL club teams behind the woodshed year after year, decade after decade. Again, it's a completely different animal to understanding the quality of those individual players when you're talking about such a different system.
All told, CSKA played less than 40 games against the NHL over a 15 year period between 1975 and 1991, factor in the additional Canada Cup exposure in 1976, 1981, 1984, 1987 and 1991, so basically we're looking at an 80 game sample size of that generation vs NHL competition during their primes. That's reallt not too much to go on as far as Top 10-20 reputations.
Canada Cup - Wikipedia
coolboarder
Registered User
The issue here is that most Soviet Russian didn't play or played more consistent with the pros. They played against teams in the competition that was mainly amateur to retain their Olympics status, even in the Olympics and we all knew that the tier of competition is lower, even history 30-40 or even 50 years later showed a different picture of what Soviet Russia was like and they kind of blew their legacy by not playing against Canadian or at least allowed their own players play in the NHL until 90's because of Iron Curtain era. It is not biased against the all time Russian great. We will never know how they will fare amongst the NHLers. Had they played against the NHLers tier of competition then we might have considered their status amongst the all-time great and it's sad fact that we face here 50 years later.
The first Summit Series showed us that Canadian won and beat them at their own rink size 3-1 in Moscow once they have their leg going despite the obvious bias in refereeing. Oops. Even on the best vs the best format, Canada only lost one time in 20 years period between 70's to 90's and that was Canada Cup of 1981. It is not enough to gauge the Russian for top 10 of All-time to prove their worth. I didn't count 1974 Summit Series as there was a depleted talent pool as clearly seen against the same Soviet Team in 1972. Had the result been reversed in 1972, then we might consider some of them as top 10 all-time and would be debated 100 years from now. One biggest take away is that the Miracle on Ice in 1980 kind of tarnished their legacy even the same team that played Canada in Canada Cup. The 1980 game against USA was played in their own IIHF rink sized and IIHF rules with IIHF referee and they had absolutely zero excuses for losing that game. Had the Russia Soviet's government allowed some of their players to NHL in the 70's and 80's, their legacy would be shining 50 years later if they proved their worth amongst the pro.
The Russians knew that the NHL was one of the best league in the world and they chose to play propaganda game and lost all because they were so concerned about the Olympic medal counts and even history tells me that Olympics hockey before 50's lost their way due to political games where everybody knew that Russia chose to keep all of their best players just to dominate the competition and not allowing their new players to join with the Olympics program for many years. It was clear as the day and they were blind to the fact.
The first Summit Series showed us that Canadian won and beat them at their own rink size 3-1 in Moscow once they have their leg going despite the obvious bias in refereeing. Oops. Even on the best vs the best format, Canada only lost one time in 20 years period between 70's to 90's and that was Canada Cup of 1981. It is not enough to gauge the Russian for top 10 of All-time to prove their worth. I didn't count 1974 Summit Series as there was a depleted talent pool as clearly seen against the same Soviet Team in 1972. Had the result been reversed in 1972, then we might consider some of them as top 10 all-time and would be debated 100 years from now. One biggest take away is that the Miracle on Ice in 1980 kind of tarnished their legacy even the same team that played Canada in Canada Cup. The 1980 game against USA was played in their own IIHF rink sized and IIHF rules with IIHF referee and they had absolutely zero excuses for losing that game. Had the Russia Soviet's government allowed some of their players to NHL in the 70's and 80's, their legacy would be shining 50 years later if they proved their worth amongst the pro.
The Russians knew that the NHL was one of the best league in the world and they chose to play propaganda game and lost all because they were so concerned about the Olympic medal counts and even history tells me that Olympics hockey before 50's lost their way due to political games where everybody knew that Russia chose to keep all of their best players just to dominate the competition and not allowing their new players to join with the Olympics program for many years. It was clear as the day and they were blind to the fact.
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Did you see play Makarov in his prime? He was as good as Malkin when he was at his peak. The only difference is that Makarov had a longer peak and of course Makarov was a wing... So it's very difficult to compare both.
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I have seen full games of Makarov in his prime. I don't think he was quite as dominant as Malkin.
While I do agree Russians ARE typically hard to gauge on the all-time list.
I still think Tretiak should still be an exception.
We obviously can't place him in the Roy/Hasek/Brodeur range (although I think he was stylistically very similar to Brodeur).
But as with all positions, we have to go off of how influential they were at the time. And Tretiak was VERY influential. And he very much influenced the modern butterfly goalies.
He was also goalie coach to both Hasek and Belfore. And was a the trainer for both Theodore and Brodeur.
I feel we can easily put him on par with Dryden/Esposito, with a very solid case for 4th.
He instilled the same level of terror in me, back in those international tournaments as Hasek did in 98.
I still think Tretiak should still be an exception.
We obviously can't place him in the Roy/Hasek/Brodeur range (although I think he was stylistically very similar to Brodeur).
But as with all positions, we have to go off of how influential they were at the time. And Tretiak was VERY influential. And he very much influenced the modern butterfly goalies.
He was also goalie coach to both Hasek and Belfore. And was a the trainer for both Theodore and Brodeur.
I feel we can easily put him on par with Dryden/Esposito, with a very solid case for 4th.
He instilled the same level of terror in me, back in those international tournaments as Hasek did in 98.
What a weird comparison! Why compare the two?
Makarov was a smallish winger and one of the best stickhandlers in Soviet hockey. He also had the best backhand in the world at the time. I don't know what wingers in Canadian hockey were as good as Makarov. Malkin is a completely different type of player. At his best he is the best NHL player of this generation, however mainly due to injuries he did not have Makarov's consistency.
Mario le Magnifique
Habs apologist, closet Pens fan
If you actually watch a few tapes, Richard aint the one dominating on those 1950s teams, Doug Harvey was the Hab D that moved the puck and was always on the ice, and he was such a dominance. Richard was a pure goalscorer and a physical, intimidating beast, but he wasnt as involved with the puck, although he had a nose for it around the net. Anyway that was my take on the footage Ive seen. To me the best Hab on the ice was Harvey.
Ben White
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i dont think ive ever seen a player more dominant on a best on best level than Kharlamov in 72. His skill level was man vs boys at times. So peak wise, even though it can’t be proven I believe no one was ever more dominant than Kharlamov. There’s a reason why his a HOFer and considered a legend, by most Russians considered the best Russian player of all time, despite his redicolously small sample size.
Dennis Bonvie
Registered User
And yet his numbers show no such thing.
He was 3rd on the Soviet team in scoring, 3 goals and 4 assists in 7 games. His plus/minus was even. Esposito, Henderson and Yakushev put up 7 goals each.
Aesthetically, he was the standout. I believe that holds more value for Russian fans than North American fans.
newfy
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You could throw Datsyuk in one tournament where the opponents are out of shape and have him dangle around like crazy and dominate games and it doesnt mean hes the greatest of all time. He wasnt the most productive guy in the tournament, he had a lot of flash and was fun to watch. It doesnt make him the best of all time at his peak, playing against a bunc of out of shape players who had never played together
Ben White
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5 and 1/2 games before the slash whereafter he basically had to play on one leg
You don’t think Clarke felt he had to injure him cause of his flash do you? He was the most dangerous player on the Soviet team and the focus for team Canada. As usual stat watching doesn’t tell the full story.
Ben White
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“out of shape” lol. Go read some history. That series was war on ice. Meant just as much for the Canadiens.
Dennis Bonvie
Registered User
Dennis Bonvie
Registered User
Are you aware of the fact that a player coming out of the Soviet hockey machine at age of 31 was pretty much considered a 'has been'? The grind meant that they were quite worn out by that age.
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