Olympics: Is Russia over rated as a hockey power

[FiLe]

OK then if we can't use the biggest stage international hockey has to offer then please tell me what IS a suitable criteria?

If you used that matter between your ears a bit, I'm sure you'd figure it out yourself. There is NO suitable criteria for a question like this. The best-on-best tournaments are too far and few between (and as stated, are best-of-one, which makes said metric even worse) and the squads in WHCs are rather random year after year.

The thing is, there are at least six teams that can take it home at any given tournament. But sadly, you can't fit six teams into the final four, so at least two are going to go home disappointed every time. The Russians got the short end of the stick this year and they got one four years ago, but if you really consider two times a suitable sample, I recommend you attend a statistics 101 course ASAP.

 

[OttawaRoughRiderFan*]

This is such a troll thread just to get our Russian friends riled up, but laughter aside, it is fun laughing at their Olympic showings after all the arrogant, cocky comments their posters and supporters were saying leading up to Sochi for years, especially after World Junior 2011 which reinvigorated their belief. Someone go back and bring those up for more laughter lol.

Until then 3 more years of this laughter until 2018 Korea !

Unless we get a World Cup.

Russia is still a hockey power but haven't been able to win on the biggest stage due to...

1) lack of team chemistry. Too many individuals

2) lack of quality defensemen. That sochi defence was a joke compared to what Russia was able to field only a decade ago, and wasn't nearly on par with Canada, USA or Sweden

3) lack of depth. After ovie, Malkin, datsyuk, and kovalchuk, the talent falls off dramatically.

This sums it up nicely.

 

[Canuckistani]

it is fun laughing at their Olympic showings after all the arrogant, cocky comments their posters and supporters were saying leading up to Sochi for years

I don't normally relish the anguish of others, but I thoroughly enjoyed seeing the Russians crash and burn in Sochi.

There was a Russian fan at my work who endlessly went on about how Canada's wins in 2002, 2004 and 2010 didn't count - the ice wasn't the right size, it was all in North America, the IIHF didn't sanction the WC, it was a fluke etc.

This time we'd be shown who was boss of hockey. On big ice, in Russia...

Oh OK, I guess Canada will just have to turn in the greatest defensive performance in hockey history while Russia goes out in the QF, again.

 

[torero]

Russia is still a hockey power but haven't been able to win on the biggest stage due to...

1) lack of team chemistry. Too many individuals

2) lack of quality defensemen. That sochi defence was a joke compared to what Russia was able to field only a decade ago, and wasn't nearly on par with Canada, USA or Sweden

3) lack of depth. After ovie, Malkin, datsyuk, and kovalchuk, the talent falls off dramatically.

While 1 and 2 are agreed ... the 3rd is true also but the guys you mention are superstars ... Canada has not 10 guys like that ... nor Sweden nor USA ... so it exagerates the statement ... like a lack of dept for Canada ... after Crosby, talents falls off dramatically !!

Who doubts about Russia being a hockey powerhouse is high on something.

They came down as follows :

Before :
Russia, Canada
Sweden, USA, Czechoslovakia

Now :
Canada
Sweden, Russia, USA

But they are still a powerhouse.

(Brasil lost 7-1 to Germany, yet Brasil will remain Brazil .. ) same for Russia.
In winter, in Russia it is easier to play hockey than soccer.

 

[LeafsNation75]

To even be considered as a Hockey power shouldn't a country win at least one best on best tournament? Since the break up of the Soviet Union the Russian's have not won Gold in Olympic Hockey and since the NHL let their players go and play in the Olympics we have seen Canada win it 3x, one for Sweden and one for the Czech Republic. So obviously I'm choosing not to include any of their recent World Championship Gold Medals, because that was never best on best.

 

[JackSlater]

To even be considered as a Hockey power shouldn't a country win at least one best on best tournament? Since the break up of the Soviet Union the Russian's have not won Gold in Olympic Hockey and since the NHL let their players go and play in the Olympics we have seen Canada win it 3x, one for Sweden and one for the Czech Republic. So obviously I'm choosing not to include any of their recent World Championship Gold Medals, because that was never best on best.

There really is too much stock being put into single game elimination tournaments. The sample is so small, even over a decade. Russia's problem is the players in their bottom six forwards and their whole group of defencemen, not that they lost in the quarterfinals in 2010 and 2014.

 

[The Bad Guy*]

While 1 and 2 are agreed ... the 3rd is true also but the guys you mention are superstars ... Canada has not 10 guys like that ... nor Sweden nor USA ... so it exagerates the statement ... like a lack of dept for Canada ... after Crosby, talents falls off dramatically !!

Who doubts about Russia being a hockey powerhouse is high on something.

They came down as follows :

Before :
Russia, Canada
Sweden, USA, Czechoslovakia

Now :
Canada
Sweden, Russia, USA

But they are still a powerhouse.

(Brasil lost 7-1 to Germany, yet Brasil will remain Brazil .. ) same for Russia.
In winter, in Russia it is easier to play hockey than soccer.

Of course they are still a powerhouse, the question was whether they are an overrated powerhouse and for a few years they had been.

But the cat is out of the bag now,they are not how people were rating them.

They will be back in a higher position very soon however.

 

[LeafsNation75]

There really is too much stock being put into single game elimination tournaments. The sample is so small, even over a decade. Russia's problem is the players in their bottom six forwards and their whole group of defencemen, not that they lost in the quarterfinals in 2010 and 2014.

The thing is prior to the 2010 and 2014 Olympics, I remember some Russian people saying the Russian's would go undefeated and win the Gold.

In the 2010 the Round Robin they lost to Slovakia and in the 2014 Round Robin they lost to the United States. Now granted those losses were both in shootouts and they very easily could have won them. So while it might be a single game elimination tournament after the Round Robin stage, they still need to account for their games played prior to that.

 

[Canuckistani]

the 3rd is true also but the guys you mention are superstars ... Canada has not 10 guys like that ... nor Sweden nor USA ... so it exagerates the statement ... like a lack of dept for Canada ... after Crosby, talents falls off dramatically !!

Of course Canada doesn't have 10 players on par with the likes of Crosby or Toews, but go down the list of Canada's forwards and the talent doesn't drop off as it does with Russia.

I mean if you were to combine Canada and Russia into one team, how many Russians would be on it? Ovechkin, Malkin, Datsyuk, Kovalchuk, maybe Bobrovski, and that's it.

 

[Jablkon]

They are definetely still the powerhouse. Even what they managed to do with KHL (mostly based on russian players) is very impressive...They are just not able to built the proper national team.

 

[The Bad Guy*]

They are definetely still the powerhouse. Even what they managed to do with KHL (mostly based on russian players) is very impressive...They are just not able to built the proper national team.

They can still build national teams, didn't they just win the WHC?.

But there is a big difference between their stars lining up against the likes of a Kadri and Bieksa as opposed to a Crosby and Doughty.

You get the picture.

They just don't have the talent from top to bottom to deal with that right now.

They're outmatched.

 

[Canuckistani]

(Brasil lost 7-1 to Germany, yet Brasil will remain Brazil .. ) same for Russia.

Ironically, Brazil and Russia both find themselves in the same situation now: unable to win on the biggest stage, with especially poor performances at home.

While Brazil won the Copa America in 2007 and the Confederations Cup in 2005, 2009 and 2013, they have crashed and burned at the last three World Cups (QFs in 2006 and 2010, before the humiliating 7-1 debacle at home this year) and also lost in the QFs at the 2011 Copa America.

Their squad at the World Cup this year was probably the weakest they have had in the last 20 years - only a last minute crossbar prevented their exit in the second round. That 7-1 loss to Germany was the equivelant of Canada losing Crosby (Neymar) and Doughty (Thiago Silva) to injuries and then going down 13-1, in Vancouver.

Russia meanwhile has won the WHC in 2008, 2009, 2012, 2014, and the WJC in 2011, while failing at the Olympics in 2002, 2006, 2010, and in 2014 on home ice. Their Olympic squad in Sochi was notably weak, expecially on defence and with a lack of depth at forward after their top-4.

You have wonder at some point if something is fundamentally wrong.

 

[Xokkeu]

To even be considered as a Hockey power shouldn't a country win at least one best on best tournament? Since the break up of the Soviet Union the Russian's have not won Gold in Olympic Hockey and since the NHL let their players go and play in the Olympics we have seen Canada win it 3x, one for Sweden and one for the Czech Republic. So obviously I'm choosing not to include any of their recent World Championship Gold Medals, because that was never best on best.

So the big powers of World Hockey are Canada, Sweden and the Czechs.....


Well that pretty much shows why your theory is bogus.

 

[LeafsNation75]

So the big powers of World Hockey are Canada, Sweden and the Czechs.....


Well that pretty much shows why your theory is bogus.

The Czech's did defeat Russia in 1998 for the Gold.

Now I realize today they haven't been at that high of a level because their only other Olympic medal in Hockey was a Bronze in 2006, which also came against Russia. So I'm not including their Gold's from the 2005 and 2010 World Championships.

My point was at the time you could have called them Hockey power because they won the best tournament which proves that. So until Russia wins an Olympic Gold in Hockey with NHL players participating, I personally won't think of them as a Hockey power.

 

[Jakk123]

The Czech's did defeat Russia in 1998 for the Gold.

Now I realize today they haven't been at that high of a level because their only other Olympic medal in Hockey was a Bronze in 2006, which also came against Russia. So I'm not including their Gold's from the 2005 and 2010 World Championships.

My point was at the time you could have called them Hockey power because they won the best tournament which proves that. So until Russia wins an Olympic Gold in Hockey with NHL players participating, I personally won't think of them as a Hockey power.

That´s kind off ******** to me, as Olympics are one game elimination tourney. OK, you can argue that for example in 2010 they lost to us in round robin, but our team really wasn´t weak back then. Switzerland took Canada to the shootout in 2010. One lucky bounce and Swiss could´ve won. It isn´t like in the last century anymore, no team is unbeatable.

 

[J17 Vs Proclamation]

The olympics are over-used as an assessment of true hockey strength. It happens once every 4 years, has turn over in the roster, crosses generation and as we saw this year, can be decimated by injuries. For whatever reason, we've never seen Malkin/Ovechkin at their peak in this tournament.

Of course their failure in the Olympics doesn't read well, and they have often poorly implemented strategies/underperform relative to the actual talent they have. They also lag behind in certain areas against the other big nations.

Still, for all that Finland has over-exceeded and over-performed at the Olympics, Russia clearly develops more talented ice hockey players. If you want to rank teams by a once every 4 yr event, then Russia isn't doing so well, but by the players it develops, it's fine and definitely better than everybody bar Sweden/Canada/USA.

It's hard to say when/if the next world leader like an Ovechkin/Malkin or even Kovalchuk is coming along (96/97/98 and onwards are too hard to judge realistically), but there is plenty of young talent available now. Kuznetsov, Tarasenko, Yakupov + plenty of others. There is only one other country which is clearly out producing Russian in terms of high end offensive players. Goaltending isn't a weakness of Russia either. Defensively, for whatever reason, Russia has never really competed well versus the best.

 

[FiLe]

Seriously, people need to start realizing the deal behind these best-of-one tournaments. There is no major trends to be read into them. A team can pretty much have a perfect record on the group stage, but any time a team gets into the knockout stages and starts facing opponents on ones own level, they can either win - or lose. And if they lose, that's it.

A lot of things can affect that outcome. A lucky bounce. A bad matchup. How things go in other groups and who one draws thanks to that. So. Over the past two olympics, Russia barely broke a sweat to make it to the QFs. But in 2010, they drew Canada. In 2014, they drew Finland. Losing to either one in one game of hockey is not a major embarrassment. It's not like losing to a country like Latvia or Slovenia, for example. Heck, you could say it's even less of an embarrassment than struggling against 'em but eking out a win anyway...

 

[The Bad Guy*]

It's quite strange to see European posters here espousing the drawbacks of reading too much into single game elimination tournaments.

I mean, it is not like I don't give it some credence.

But I just don't remember the same attitude for teams like Canada when they didn't bring home the bacon such as 1998 and 2006. Those teams got torched for being no good and unable to be competitive on big ice. Nary a European poster said...."don't fret, **** happens in single game elimination tournaments"

Let's be honest here, the truth is somewhere in the middle. Single game elimination or not 2006 Canada was a bad team, and 1998 Canada is an example of how a single game elimination supports the theory.

In Sochi, maybe with a bounce or 2 here against Finland Russia may have been able to go farther, while in 2010 they just sucked and weren't going to go anywhere single game or not.

But at some point regardless of what style of tournament you are going to have to win games and you can't hide behind single game elimination theories forever, strong hockey countries that have the goods win those games.

Russia hasn't,and countries like Canada have.....................3 times.


Single game elimination or not you need more then a bronze and a silver to show for 5 best on best olympics to get a top rating in international hockey.

Russia needs to start nailing down better results in best on best olympics. Why should we cut them slack for their results just because a tournament is single elimination format?

We wouldn't do it for anyone else. I know Canada would'nt be getting cut any slack that's for sure.

Russia wants to be seen as higher up the food chain? They know what to do...........................win some top shelf tourneys.


Results count and could have and should haves don't, you all know it as well as I.

 

[LEAFANFORLIFE23]

It's quite strange to see European posters here espousing the drawbacks of reading too much into single game elimination tournaments.

I mean, it is not like I don't give it some credence.

But I just don't remember the same attitude for teams like Canada when they didn't bring home the bacon such as 1998 and 2006. Those teams got torched for being no good and unable to be competitive on big ice. Nary a European poster said...."don't fret, **** happens in single game elimination tournaments"

Let's be honest here, the truth is somewhere in the middle. Single game elimination or not 2006 Canada was a bad team, and 1998 Canada is an example of how a single game elimination supports the theory.

In Sochi, maybe with a bounce or 2 here against Finland Russia may have been able to go farther, while in 2010 they just sucked and weren't going to go anywhere single game or not.

But at some point regardless of what style of tournament you are going to have to win games and you can't hide behind single game elimination theories forever, strong hockey countries that have the goods win those games.

Russia hasn't,and countries like Canada have.....................3 times.


Single game elimination or not you need more then a bronze and a silver to show for 5 best on best olympics to get a top rating in international hockey.

Russia needs to start nailing down better results in best on best olympics. Why should we cut them slack for their results just because a tournament is single elimination format?

We wouldn't do it for anyone else. I know Canada would'nt be getting cut any slack that's for sure.

Russia wants to be seen as higher up the food chain? They know what to do...........................win some top shelf tourneys.


Results count and could have and should haves don't, you all know it as well as I.

BINGO. We wouldn't be cut the same slack so why should Russia or anyone else get it?

 

[FiLe]

BINGO. We wouldn't be cut the same slack so why should Russia or anyone else get it?

Because changing the target to Canada or any other country does not make the argument any more right? People who smack-talked Canada back in the day were equally wrong. It's as simple as that.

Or are we really now down to a line of logic stating "we were mistreated so we have the right to mistreat others in turn". If so, you've stooped down to excusing your own behavior (which you apparently know is low) rather than examining the question objectively. Let's see if we can go even lower from here.

A word to the wise though. "The other guys started it" was not a very successful argument in kindergarten, and it's not one in here. Or it shouldn't be. Of course, one has to wonder what it tells about the people trying to use it...

 

[FedorBure]

I am Russian and I only got into hockey through watching the Russians play.

I think it's a valid question even though the OP might be a troll.

Russia has always had a strong reputation due to a few superstars (Malkin, Ovechkin, Bure, Fedorov, Mogilny, etc.). Having a few of these guys on the team makes them look great on paper.

They also get a very high reputation because of their extreme dominance in the Soviet era.

However, today? They lack depth. I would probably rank them #5 after Canada, USA, Sweden and Finland. While Russia has a few superstars, Canada's entire roster are superstars.

Having said that, given Canada's talent, they really should be dominating tournaments and not squeaking by in games like vs Latvia.

 

[The Bad Guy*]

Because changing the target to Canada or any other country does not make the argument any more right? People who smack-talked Canada back in the day were equally wrong. It's as simple as that.

Or are we really now down to a line of logic stating "we were mistreated so we have the right to mistreat others in turn". If so, you've stooped down to excusing your own behavior (which you apparently know is low) rather than examining the question objectively. Let's see if we can go even lower from here.

A word to the wise though. "The other guys started it" was not a very successful argument in kindergarten, and it's not one in here. Or it shouldn't be. Of course, one has to wonder what it tells about the people trying to use it...

So what is the argument then?

We should rank teams according to how snazzy their uniforms are?

Russia has no medals to show for the last 3 olympics with one of those tournaments being at home, are we saying it is wrong to drop their ranking as a hockey power?

How long can a team hide behind single game elimination formats to justify a higher then results earned ranking?

That's not how sports work.

 

[LEAFANFORLIFE23]

So what is the argument then?

We should rank teams according to how snazzy their uniforms are?

Based on a response I got to similar question I am going to guess he's going to tell you their currently is no valid way since a best on best tournament only happens every 4 years.

 

[LEAFANFORLIFE23]

I am Russian and I only got into hockey through watching the Russians play.

I think it's a valid question even though the OP might be a troll.

Russia has always had a strong reputation due to a few superstars (Malkin, Ovechkin, Bure, Fedorov, Mogilny, etc.). Having a few of these guys on the team makes them look great on paper.

They also get a very high reputation because of their extreme dominance in the Soviet era.

However, today? They lack depth. I would probably rank them #5 after Canada, USA, Sweden and Finland. While Russia has a few superstars, Canada's entire roster are superstars.

Having said that, given Canada's talent, they really should be dominating tournaments and not squeaking by in games like vs Latvia.

you guys are at least #6 the Czech Republic has been better

 

[The Bad Guy*]

Based on a response I got to similar question I am going to guess he's going to tell you their currently is no valid way since a best on best tournament only happens every 4 years.

Russia is a hockey power, to me it is silly to even question that.

But to me it is also silly to say you cannot drop them from the higher echelon in rankings because the olympics are single game elimination formats. You can cut some slack for the occasional failure, it's understandable.

But 3 in a row with one of them being at home to boot?

You can't hide behind that single game stuff forever. Results matter.