How good was Slava Fetisov in NHL?

[Eye of Ra]

You rarely hear about his NHL-career. How good was he with the Devils and the Wings?

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[GMR]

He was clearly past his prime but still a productive player. Nothing special. He was 31 his first season. Back then that was old, especially for someone entering the league for the first time. Even nowadays, a 31 year old entering the league for the first time would have trouble adjusting.

I'm assuming NHL fans expected more because he was a major star overseas in the 1980s and was highly regarded.

 

[Dennis Bonvie]

Recall seeing him play in Hartford for the Devils in his first NHL season.

There was play where he took the puck behind his own net. Forechecker followed him and another came from the other side. Looked like he was trapped. He flipped a backhand pass just in time to his defensive partner in front of the net. His partner immediately iced the puck, even though there was no one near him. Defensemen didn't make that kind of play in those days.

He was playing a different game.

 

[tabness]

Can't speak about his earlier NHL career but growing up watching him on the Wings you would always hear the reverent tones Larionov and Fetisov were spoken about in. Could definitely see why with Larionov, he showed flashes of what would have made him brilliant in the past. I was honestly confused why Fetisov got that clout lol, chalked it up to age I guess then.

Get the exact same sense going back and watching Wings games from the early part of glory years now, Larionov you see it, not really at all Fetisov.

Then again I've always been less impressed than most of Fetisov's play even during his heyday in the eighties. Feels like many of the other Soviet defensemen are underrated vis a vis their (lack of) reputation compared with Fetisov.

 

[Professor What]

He was clearly past his prime but still a productive player. Nothing special. He was 31 his first season. Back then that was old, especially for someone entering the league for the first time. Even nowadays, a 31 year old entering the league for the first time would have trouble adjusting.

I'm assuming NHL fans expected more because he was a major star overseas in the 1980s and was highly regarded.

To the bolded, it's worth noting the fact that his time before the league was in the Soviet system. I know that's something that everybody knows but the significance of it isn't small. A lot of the Soviet guys tended to break down, thanks to the rigorous training system they went through, and Fetisov managed to remain relevant until he was 39. That's pretty significant to me.

 

[JackSlater]

Not so great. I think we generally know the reasons why, but he wasn't all that much better than Kasatonov when they came over and I'd say that both Makarov and Larionov clearly transitioned better and were better in the NHL. He had decent luck in terms of transition as well with Kasatonov joining him on a somewhat ascendant New Jersey team and then he joined a deep Detroit team where they eventually formed the Russian five.

I view Fetisov's NHL career as a neutral for him historically. It doesn't hurt him given his age, lifestyle considerations etc. but it doesn't help him in my eyes the way it somewhat does with Makarov and Larionov.

 

[Albatros]

Fetisov was a great hockey player, but also one of those guys that knew how to make themselves important. The kind of guy that survives nuclear war together with the cockroaches. In the NHL he was a glorified Jyrki Lumme at best.

 

[sr edler]

I think we've had this exact same thread a number of times now.

Recall seeing him play in Hartford for the Devils in his first NHL season.

There was play where he took the puck behind his own net. Forechecker followed him and another came from the other side. Looked like he was trapped. He flipped a backhand pass just in time to his defensive partner in front of the net. His partner immediately iced the puck, even though there was no one near him. Defensemen didn't make that kind of play in those days.

He was playing a different game.

This made me think of a Kent Nilsson interview where he spoke about his first NA experience. He said he tried to mix it up a bit by switching sides, but one of his teammates empathically told him to stick to his side and just go up and down. Sports can be really rigid and simplistic sometimes.

 

[Hobnobs]

Defensively he was a great middle pairing guy. Always calm and collected. Good at positioning. Since he had lost a step or two with skating and speed he wasn't great offensively but still as any 80's russian, could thread a needle with his passing.

Didn't shy away from physical stuff either.

Now this is obviously disappointing considering his 80's pedigree but still a good defenseman.

 

[MS]

I mentioned here a little while back that in my head he played for quite a bit longer in Detroit than he did in NJ, and I was surprised to look at his stats and see that he played ~350 games in NJ as opposed to only ~200 in Detroit.

I have little memory of him in those NJ years (despite watching a ton of hockey) which probably speaks to how anonymous his play was, but he really seemed to find a fit in Detroit and was very good there, especially in his first year or so.

Slow as hell but always in the right place and strong as an ox.

 

[Michael Farkas]

Recall seeing him play in Hartford for the Devils in his first NHL season.

There was play where he took the puck behind his own net. Forechecker followed him and another came from the other side. Looked like he was trapped. He flipped a backhand pass just in time to his defensive partner in front of the net. His partner immediately iced the puck, even though there was no one near him. Defensemen didn't make that kind of play in those days.

He was playing a different game.

Patented Fetisov play. This is always what stuck out to me in the Soviet film. Very Doug Harvey-like. Excellent observation.

 

[tarheelhockey]

I mentioned here a little while back that in my head he played for quite a bit longer in Detroit than he did in NJ, and I was surprised to look at his stats and see that he played ~350 games in NJ as opposed to only ~200 in Detroit.

I have little memory of him in those NJ years (despite watching a ton of hockey) which probably speaks to how anonymous his play was, but he really seemed to find a fit in Detroit and was very good there, especially in his first year or so.

Slow as hell but always in the right place and strong as an ox.

I have the same head-canon that he played in Detroit for longer.

Part of it may be that NHL coverage got a lot better around 1994, when he went to Detroit. And coverage of the Devils and Wings specifically changed a lot around that time.

 

[sr edler]

I think there was some friction during his time in Jersey, with some teammates he didn't get along with, at least in the beginning there. Perhaps some Ds who were afraid he would take their jobs or whatever.

But yeah, 2 playoff goals in 116 games is still a bit wild for such a high-profile player, even if it's someone riding the backend of his career.

 

[Hobnobs]

I think there was some friction during his time in Jersey, with some teammates he didn't get along with, at least in the beginning there. Perhaps some Ds who were afraid he would take their jobs or whatever.

But yeah, 2 playoff goals in 116 games is still a bit wild for such a high-profile player, even if it's someone riding the backend of his career.

The biggest friction came when they brought in Kasatonov as Fetisov hated his guts.

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

I think there was some friction during his time in Jersey, with some teammates he didn't get along with, at least in the beginning there. Perhaps some Ds who were afraid he would take their jobs or whatever.

The biggest friction came when they brought in Kasatonov as Fetisov hated his guts.

it was both. iirc guys on the devils would intentionally throw fetisov suicide passes.

 

[Nerowoy nora tolad]

I think there was some friction during his time in Jersey, with some teammates he didn't get along with, at least in the beginning there. Perhaps some Ds who were afraid he would take their jobs or whatever.

But yeah, 2 playoff goals in 116 games is still a bit wild for such a high-profile player, even if it's someone riding the backend of his career.

He was on poor terms with Kasatonov relating to the events leaving the USSR.

I believe he also explicitly mentioned that the head coach openly hated Russians. That could be any of Cunniff, McVie, Brooks, or Lemaire, although Im pretty sure neither of Brooks or Lemaire would have cared about petty things like that.

 

[Hobnobs]

He was on poor terms with Kasatonov relating to the events leaving the USSR.

I believe he also explicitly mentioned that the head coach openly hated Russians. That could be any of Cunniff, McVie, Brooks, or Lemaire, although Im pretty sure neither of Brooks or Lemaire would have cared about petty things like that.

I have a hard time seeing Cunniff being the one as well since he was pretty much a guy who incorporated styles from all over the world and pretty open minded with hockey. And McVey while a awful f***ing coach was supposed to be a funny guy and keeping it positive in the locker room. Which practically means it could be all four. Xenophobia especially towards russians at that time was pretty common.

 

[Staniowski]

Fetisov was great, maybe the best defenseman of the past 40+ years....i.e. since Orr.

He was no doubt at his best in the early 1980s, when his skating was at its peak. His skating was incredibly strong. There were more than a few viewers in North America who thought he was the best hockey player in the world during those years (i.e. better than Gretzky and Makarov).

In addition to his skating, he had great puck skills, was very smart, tough, strong offensively and defensively.

By the '87 Canada Cup, his game had declined somewhat, although he was still very good. He had suffered a broken leg in the mid '80s and perhaps wasn't the same after that (though we didn't see him play regularly, so it was difficult for Canadians to tell). Did he break his leg in the car accident, or were these two separate incidents?

His play in the NHL wasn't as strong partly because of the fact he was already declining, partly because of age, and partly because of the very different styles of play between his decade+ in the USSR and that in the NHL. The styles have melded together a lot more in the years since then.