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How come the Russians are so low ranked in the all time lists?

Perfect_Drug said:
Canucks fan I presume?


Revisionist history for Messier to be omitted.

The guy won 2 Harts over a peak Lemieux and Gretzky. If you question how that happened, you were obviously too young and never watched.

He also won a Conn Smyth over Gretzky. Again you needed to watch that finals against the Islanders to understand. No boxscore will explain what an absolute menace Messier was. He was an intimidating force that would elbow you in the throat, fight, and then score the game winning goal. The teams he played on seemed 6" taller, and the opposing teams had their butts collectively clenched.

Hockey games are not won by statistical analysis and spreadsheets. Hockey games are won on the ice and Messiers intimidating presence on the ice lead to wins and cups.

Even if he was a dirty head-hunting piece of shit.
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Not sure whether I would put someone in my top20 on the basis of being the best at elbowing people. That wouldn't even go unnoticed these days.
 
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Overrated said:
Makarov is the greatest Russian player of all time brother. He played against NHL all-stars and team Canada and NHL teams many times throughout the late 70s and the entire 80s. Besides Gretzky and Lemieux nobody was better than him. All of the old Soviet players failed in the NHL because they were forced to play a different style of hockey. Once Bowman allowed them to play their thing you had 35 year old Larionov and 37 year old Fetisov have their best season in the NHL.

Look at Makarov here behind maybe the greatest shorthanded goal of all time against this line: Gretzky Lemieux Messier Bourque Coffey


Krutov only had 30 points in the NHL but outscored virtually every Canadian except for the GOATs in the 80s. Here are his numbers at the Juniors he played against Kurri.
View attachment 754301

All of the 80s Euro legends (Kurry, Stastny) in the NHL were getting their asses smashed just a few years prior by the Soviets.
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That's laughable. About 3/4 of the players on that USSR team were from CSKA Moscow including all the stars, and so was the coach. Probably the only reason it wasn't 100% is because there simply wasn't enough ice time for all of them.

That same CSKA team steamrolled the rest of their league with a 32-5-7 record in 44 games as well as more than twice the number of GF than GA. And that seems to have been their "worst" season in ten years.

Of COURSE those players looked good against a group of cobbled together NHL stars. That is absolutely no basis for a fair comparison. They also spent their entire domestic careers on a superteam that was crushing it's opponents. They also had tons more time to train and far less wear and tear from seasons twice as short.
 
Not The One said:
That's laughable. About 3/4 of the players on that USSR team were from CSKA Moscow including all the stars, and so was the coach. Probably the only reason it wasn't 100% is because there simply wasn't enough ice time for all of them.

That same CSKA team steamrolled the rest of their league with a 32-5-7 record in 44 games as well as more than twice the number of GF than GA. And that seems to have been their "worst" season in ten years.

Of COURSE those players looked good against a group of cobbled together NHL stars. That is absolutely no basis for a fair comparison. They also spent their entire domestic careers on a superteam that was crushing it's opponents. They also had tons more time to train and far less wear and tear from seasons twice as short.
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Last game of Challenge Cup 79 NHL All-Stars 0:6 USSR

Barber (Flyers) -Clarke (Flyers) - McDonald (Leafs)
Gainey (Habs) - Perreault (Sabers) - Lafleur (Habs)
Marcotte (Bruins) - Nilsson (Rangers) - Hedberg (Rangers)
Gillies (Islanders) -Trottier (Islanders) - Bossy (Islanders)

A. Golikov (Dynamo) - Petrov (CSKA) - Mikhailov (CSKA)
Tyumenev (Krylia) -Gimaev (Ufa) -Makarov (CSKA)
Kapustin (CSKA) - Zhluktov (CSKA) - Balderis (CSKA)
Skvortsov (Gorky) - Kovin (Gorky) - Varnakov (Gorky)

The argument that it's impossible to create chemistry amongst NHLers because they all play on different teams even after a whole camp has always been a very weak one. Coaches also tend to put players who fit each other and who have played with one another together. They were are not randomly cobbled together as you put it.
 
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MrOT said:
Looking through the "official" (North American that is) all time lists of "top 20 players of all time" for example they look very different from the European ones and all the legendary Soviet players find themselves ridiculously low in the ranking. Thinking about that the Soviet beat Canada 8-1 in the 1981 Canada Cup final and that the Russian Canada Cup teams through the 80's played at the level of Team Canada including Gretzky and Lemieux, even though they had to adapt ot smaller rink, different rules etc. in no time to do that. All the external circumstances was NA biased, yet the Russians played at the same level. Are the "Greatest players of all time" lists too NA biased?
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What are the European lists, hard to compare with no NA list or no Euro list.

Edit: oops just saw @Perfect_Drug was a 3 year bump.
 
Overrated said:
Not sure whether I would put someone in my top20 on the basis of being the best at elbowing people. That wouldn't even go unnoticed these days.
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Coming from a lifelong Islander fan and Ranger hater back then, Messier was a GREAT player who also did whatever it took to win. A rare combination of elite skill, unparalleled leadership and the competitive balls to do what needed to be done
 
Hard to rank them I think.

That team was amazing but it was also a permanent group of the best players the Soviets had. So then beating a thrown together team Canada is harder to judge.
 
I think what’s been on my mind more than players concerning NA biases, has been coaches.

There’s a lot of talk about Russian systems, training, etc in this thread, but have we ever seen a Russian coach in the NHL? A German? A Swede? A Finn?

That seems strange, doesn’t it?

Found this article discussing similar

www.sportsnet.ca

Why Rikard Grönborg could be NHL’s first European head coach since 2001

www.sportsnet.ca www.sportsnet.ca
 
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Strangle said:
I think what’s been on my mind more than players concerning NA biases, has been coaches.

There’s a lot of talk about Russian systems, training, etc in this thread, but have we ever seen a Russian coach in the NHL? A German? A Swede? A Finn?

That seems strange, doesn’t it?

Found this article discussing similar

www.sportsnet.ca

Why Rikard Grönborg could be NHL’s first European head coach since 2001

www.sportsnet.ca www.sportsnet.ca
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We have, two or three,
Hlinka, Suhonen, wasn’t Kreueger a Canadian born German coach. ( so he might not meet criteria), but other 2 do.
 
Golden_Jet said:
We have, two or three,
Hlinka, Suhonen, wasn’t Kreueger a Canadian born German coach. ( so he might not meet criteria), but other 2 do.
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Both of those were mentioned in the article, but that was still 20 years ago.

We have a team going back to Babcock, but not taking a chance on a successful European head coach?
 
Strangle said:
Both of those were mentioned in the article, but that was still 20 years ago.

We have a team going back to Babcock, but not taking a chance on a successful European head coach?
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Just replying to
but have we ever seen a Russian coach in the NHL? A German? A Swede? A Finn?

Why word like that, then when you knew there was some.
 
Golden_Jet said:
Just replying to
but have we ever seen a Russian coach in the NHL? A German? A Swede? A Finn?

Why word like that, then when you knew there was some.
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I often speak hyperbolically, this is why you and I clash so often. It’s just part of my personality, I’m not 100% literal at all times.

You are always incredibly literal. And I am not
 
Strangle said:
I often speak hyperbolically, this is why you and I clash so often. It’s just part of my personality, I’m not 100% literal at all times.

You are always incredibly literal. And I am not
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Hyperbole doesn’t come across in text.
 
Overrated said:
The argument that it's impossible to create chemistry amongst NHLers because they all play on different teams even after a whole camp has always been a very weak one.
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It’s a relic of the era when Canada was still struggling psychologically with the notion of being defeated in international hockey.

I remember hearing this argument regularly when I was young, and of course it was not hard to convince anyone that the game must have been rigged if the Soviets were winning routinely. In retrospect it’s a silly argument driven by insecurities.
 
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