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

[newfy]

At this point we've had Russians in the NHL for 30 years. Ovechkin is a top 20 player ever, but none of the others are really close. In the top 100 you'd see Malkin, Fedorov, and maybe Bure. The Soviets in the mid 60s to earlier had trouble with Canadian amateur teams so it seems unlikely that anyone before say Firsov peaked was really competitive with the world's best. The Soviets started coming over to the NHL at the end of the 80s, so it's a 20 year span where the Soviets have world class players who couldn't come to the NHL. I can buy that USSR produced players better than Russia has, but how much better could USSR have done in 20 years than Russia has done in 30? Who are the top 20 level players? I could buy Makarov at that level - he stood out massively among the Soviet forwards and was quite possibly the best forward in the 1980s outside of Gretzky and Lemieux at the very end of the decade. Kharlamov has his legend, but his results don't match up with the legend and his prime was cut short. Even his most famous moment (in North American eyes anyway) saw him playing at the level of Esposito, and Esposito is not often found in the top 20. Fetisov was great and is a top 100 player, but I'd be hard pressed to find a place for him in the top 20. He stood out among Soviet defencemen, but Russia hasn't been all that strong at producing defencemen in the last 30 years and the strength of the Soviet teams was at forward. Somewhat similar story with Tretiak.

A top 100 list should have several top Soviets, but at the top 20 level I don't know how many Soviets someone could realistically expect. Beyond one or two and it would look pretty suspect.

I agree with everything here. Theyre obviously a power house but the logic in your post is exactly why there isnt a bunch in the top 20 all time. The thing with a guy like Kharlamov is that the production doesnt match the legend around him. When people are only really seeing him in tournaments/exhibition games back then it can easily make someone look better than they are. For example, I think Datsyuk is probably a top 100 player of all time. But with his puck skills and talent being so flashy, if he only played against NHL teams with an all star team or only in tournaments he could easily have people thinking he would've been much better than top 100.

It just doesnt make sense that a bunch of these guys would be top 20 when once they came and played on a level playing field it hasnt happened since

 

[Iapyi]

I think they are over-rated if anything.

Our current society is so anxious to appear as inclusionary and so focused on wanting to come across as enlightened that the pendulum has swung way farther in the other direction then it ever was in the first place.

 

[Ben White]

I

At this point we've had Russians in the NHL for 30 years. Ovechkin is a top 20 player ever, but none of the others are really close. In the top 100 you'd see Malkin, Fedorov, and maybe Bure. The Soviets in the mid 60s to earlier had trouble with Canadian amateur teams so it seems unlikely that anyone before say Firsov peaked was really competitive with the world's best. The Soviets started coming over to the NHL at the end of the 80s, so it's a 20 year span where the Soviets have world class players who couldn't come to the NHL. I can buy that USSR produced players better than Russia has, but how much better could USSR have done in 20 years than Russia has done in 30? Who are the top 20 level players? I could buy Makarov at that level - he stood out massively among the Soviet forwards and was quite possibly the best forward in the 1980s outside of Gretzky and Lemieux at the very end of the decade. Kharlamov has his legend, but his results don't match up with the legend and his prime was cut short. Even his most famous moment (in North American eyes anyway) saw him playing at the level of Esposito, and Esposito is not often found in the top 20. Fetisov was great and is a top 100 player, but I'd be hard pressed to find a place for him in the top 20. He stood out among Soviet defencemen, but Russia hasn't been all that strong at producing defencemen in the last 30 years and the strength of the Soviet teams was at forward. Somewhat similar story with Tretiak.

A top 100 list should have several top Soviets, but at the top 20 level I don't know how many Soviets someone could realistically expect. Beyond one or two and it would look pretty suspect.

I’d put 6 Europeans in the top 20: Ovechkin, Malkin, Kharlamov, Forsberg, Lidstrom, Jagr

Malkin is borderline though

players I wouldn’t put in the top 20: Messier, Sakic, Kurri, Francis

 

[Perfect_Drug]

They also played and trained together all year round and of course managed to spank a team of NHL all stars thrown together a week before


Yeah they had some great players but they had a great system. Not enough exposure in the top league in the world. Every sport does it. DOnt see many Japanense/Korean players not in the MLB in cooperstown. How many CFLers in the football hall of fame?
Any europeans not in the nba make it in?

They wrecked Gretzky's dynasty Oilers.

6-3

 

[ElLeetch]

. 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

The soviet group trained together constantly. The NA teams were throw-togethers, taken from different teams playing different systems. You are discounting team chemistry and context.

 

[gwh]

NHL lists are NHL related. I don't think anyone thinks they are absolute in the world wide scale.

 

[gwh]

I


I’d put 6 Europeans in the top 20: Ovechkin, Malkin, Kharlamov, Forsberg, Lidstrom, Jagr

Malkin is borderline though

players I wouldn’t put in the top 20: Messier, Sakic, Kurri, Francis

Stellar NHL career. I really liked his efforts in the playoffs. :-D

 

[Salsa Shark]

Forsberg

Peter Forsberg a top 20 all time player?

Please make your case

 

[Yuri35]

I


I’d put 6 Europeans in the top 20: Ovechkin, Malkin, Kharlamov, Forsberg, Lidstrom, Jagr

Malkin is borderline though

players I wouldn’t put in the top 20: Messier, Sakic, Kurri, Francis

Malkin is borderline top 20 but not Ovie?
Despite malkin having:
-the most dominant RS of the two (his 2011-2012 season)
-a better career ppg
-3 SCs to 1
-the best CS run of any player not named Lemieux or Greztsky (so that obviously includes Ovie's CS run)
-2 Art Rosses to 1

And despite that, Ovie is a solid top 20 player but malkin is borderline? Really?

 

[PromisedLand]

Malkin is a freakin' boss and one of my fav players (when not playing against the Leafs); I thought keeping him out of the top 100 was an absolute JOKE by the league.

 

[KirkAlbuquerque]

Isn’t the centennial team 4/6 Russians?

 

[Romang67]

Malkin is borderline top 20 but not Ovie?
Despite malkin having:
-the most dominant RS of the two (his 2011-2012 season)
-a better career ppg
-3 SCs to 1
-the best CS run of any player not named Lemieux or Greztsky (so that obviously includes Ovie's CS run)
-2 Art Rosses to 1

And despite that, Ovie is a solid top 20 player but malkin is borderline? Really?

Ovechkin does have being arguably the best goal scorer in NHL history going for him. And he has 200 more games played and 200 more points even though they were in the same draft. And he has 3 Hart and 3 Lindsay trophies to Malkin's 1.

Putting Ovechkin well above Malkin in all time rankings really doesn't seem particularly controversial to me.

 

[kingsholygrail]

Intangibles.

 

[Yuri35]

Ovechkin does have being arguably the best goal scorer in NHL history going for him. And he has 200 more games played and 200 more points even though they were in the same draft. And he has 3 Hart and 3 Lindsay trophies to Malkin's 1.

Putting Ovechkin well above Malkin in all time rankings really doesn't seem particularly controversial to me.

I'll give you that.
But other than that, there is admittedly no argument in putting Ovechkin WELL above Malkin (slightly above, perhaps but well above, no f***ing away )
And about the 200 more games, you very well know why he has that over malkin.
If you compared Ovie's career when he had the same number of games as Malkin now, almost all my points would stand if not even more toward Malkin (probably no SC and no CS for Ovie when he had Malkin's current number of games)

 

[BudBundy]

I


I’d put 6 Europeans in the top 20: Ovechkin, Malkin, Kharlamov, Forsberg, Lidstrom, Jagr

Malkin is borderline though

players I wouldn’t put in the top 20: Messier, Sakic, Kurri, Francis

No Messier? That’s just silly. The guy is second on the all-time career lists for playoff points and regular season games played, and is third all-time for regular season points. 6 Stanley Cup rings. Only guy in NHL history to captain two Cup winning teams.

 

[BudBundy]

They wrecked Gretzky's dynasty Oilers.

6-3

Lol. Put the Stanley Cup on the line and play the game again. Results would be different.

 

[filinski77]

Malkin is borderline top 20 but not Ovie?
Despite malkin having:
-the most dominant RS of the two (his 2011-2012 season)
-a better career ppg
-3 SCs to 1
-the best CS run of any player not named Lemieux or Greztsky (so that obviously includes Ovie's CS run)
-2 Art Rosses to 1

And despite that, Ovie is a solid top 20 player but malkin is borderline? Really?

	Ovechkin	Malkin
Hart	3	1
Top 10 Hart	9	4
Pearson/Lindsays	3	1
Ross	1	2
Point/gp Lead	3	1
Top 10 points	8	4
Rockets	9	0
Top 10 Goals	13	3
Cups	1	3
Smythe	1	1

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

The only thing Malkin has on Ovi is team success, other than that, Ovechkin blows Malkin out of the water when looking at accolades to rate someone all-time.

 

[Romang67]

I'll give you that.
But other than that, there is admittedly no argument in putting Ovechkin WELL above Malkin (slightly above, perhaps but well above, no f***ing away )
And about the 200 more games, you very well know why he has that over malkin.
If you compared Ovie's career when he had the same number of games as Malkin now, almost all my points would stand if not even more toward Malkin (probably no SC and no CS for Ovie when he had Malkin's current number of games)

If you're talking about Malkin missing the 05/06 season, that brings us down to ~150 games less than Ovechkin. Health matters for these conversations, and Ovechkin staying remarkably healthy through his career is a plus for him over Malkin.

Likewise, removing 200 games from Ovechkin's NHL career really doesn't make any sense here. He did play those games. More than than, he played them and won another 3 Maurice Richard trophies, further adding to his case as not only an extraordinary goalscorer for his generation, but likely the best ever.

 

[Yuri35]

	Ovechkin	Malkin
Hart	3	1
Top 10 Hart	9	4
Pearson/Lindsays	3	1
Ross	1	2
Point/gp Lead	3	1
Top 10 points	8	4
Rockets	9	0
Top 10 Goals	13	3
Cups	1	3
Smythe	1	1

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

The only thing Malkin has on Ovi is team success, other than that, Ovechkin blows Malkin out of the water when looking at accolades to rate someone all-time.

cool so only goals matter to you now??
If so then Ovie is also superior to Sid

 

[filinski77]

cool so only goals matter to you now??
If so then Ovie is also superior to Sid

Did you miss the part of the charts where Ovi has:
-2 more Harts
-2 more Pearson/Lindsays
-5 more top 10 Hart finishes
-2 more times leading the league in points/gp
-4 more top 10 point finishes

And then on top of all that, the nine rockets that ovechkin has should definitely be considered.

 

[Ben White]

Peter Forsberg a top 20 all time player?

Please make your case

4th all time in assists per game, 8th all time in points per game, top 10 in playoff points per game, only player to lead the playoffs in points twice without making the finals (one of which happened after he took an entire year off due to injuries and barely had time to prepare), being able to stay consistent on a game to game basis point wise) even during seasons where he could barely skate cause of injuries and missed every other game, (we could dig deeper into this but don’t have the time, the deeper you dig into Forsberg’s stats the more dominant he looks it’s as simple as that), and off course the famous “eye test” which is a very underrated evaluation tool. What I’ve learnt is that the better eye test the likelier it is that the player will look better when checking in deeper into his stats. Raw stats fluctuates A LOT more than people want to admit cause of a billion circumstances that has nothing to do with the player’s individual quality, and it’s almost impossible to factor out all the fluctuation. Therefore I’m one of the few who thinks the eye test should have some bearing in these kind of discussions. Btw most sane hockey fans would put Forsberg on the top 20 “best” hockey players of all time, “greatest” is more a matter of definition. I’d say Forsberg is without a doubt among the top 10 best players of all time, which in my book puts him among the 20 greatest even with an injury prone career. To put things into perspective, a lot of casual hockey fans or even hard core non Avalanche fans even believe Sakic to be the better player vs Peter. I did a poll once on the Avs’ board just for fun and Forsberg absolutely blew Sakic out of the water among the fans who “actually know”. Forsberg was without a single doubt a more dominant, better, competent, impactful call it whatever you want player than Messier, Sakic, Yzerman, Francis no matter how much accolades they collected or how long they played. Watching them play and following their careers I even think any other statement is flat out redicolous.

 

[Ben White]

Ranking the top 25 players in NHL history

Maybe the OP is actually right. This list from USA today has Jagr at 22. Many people believe him to be a candidate for the 5th spot...

 

[Ben White]

They wrecked Gretzky's dynasty Oilers.

6-3

Ok so hear goes the chemistry argument. You might argue that team Canada would be deeper in talent than the Oilers but the fact that the Russians had to play on NHL ice with NHL rules should wipe out a lot of that disadvantage. Just look at the speed and skill on some of the Soviets. To say they weren’t at least close to Canada’s top talent at that point isn’t right imo.

Everyone in this thread should watch this game. The Oilers are getting absolutely dominated. And there was no salary cap in this day and age so the Oilers was a pretty darn good team, an old fashioned powerhouse. Makarov was actually really good in San José in the early 90’s way past his prime. I’d bet he’d be up there with Ovi had he made an NHL career in his prime. Another thing that occur to me is that the Russians don’t really seem to dominate on a system basis, rather that they look much faster and more skilled on an individual basis. I bet they were insanely well trained and weren’t allowed much life outside hockey. But the reason doesn’t really matter, I actually think they are underrated from a historical perspective.

 

[GrkFlyersFan]

The same reason Malkin didn't crack the NHL 100.

I would say that's more of him being perceived as a "sidekick"

 

[Ben White]

I’ve seen arguments that “it’s unlikely several all time greats would come from the 70-80’s Soviet teams since that’s a relatively short time and they were quite new to the sport”. Well in any other case players are compared to their peers, and how much better you are than your peers dictates how you’ll be evaluated from a historical perspective. Obviously the Russians were far ahead anyone else in that time when it comes to skating and skill, probably because of better and more disciplined training. I start to lean towards that the Russian greats from the 70’s and 80’s in general should be much higher ranked. But I think I from now on only should care about “top 20 nhl players” and so on separately since any other discussion is impossible. Watching this video there could have been as much as 10 (or more) Russian players in the 80’s better than Jari Kurri for example, impossible to evaluate but this was an eye opener for sure.