Needs context of Soviet development history. Note use of LHS on Soviet national teams and how their breakouts and defensive structure were adapted going back through the 1970's. Naturally, given their roster assembly and style of play, their studies - to whatever degree they are studies - are likely rooted in this philosophy based out of need.
One quick example...
Count the RHS in this video...
Yeah, I have no idea. I've never watched their system closely enough to make note of the ratio of LHS to RHS. The clip was too hard to follow because it was a scoring summary/highlight reel, and I couldn't discern one guy from the next in order to do a proper count. I'm just going by what I read about Tarasov's philosophies, and his rationales for his philosophies. Some good anecdotal stories too.
One of the main things I took away from my readings back then, was that his player's positions were pretty fluid and interchangeable, intentionally. I don't remember any mention of necessity playing a factor, but you could totally be right for all I know. I'm pretty sure Tarasov was a student of the game, so in that way, I took his observations and remarks to be studies. I forget whether the actual data I saw was his, or was somebody else using theirs to support his arguments for off-hand dmen.
My post was really more about bringing attention to the fact that a highly revered coach disagreed with the overwhelming sentiment that it's advantageous to play guys on their on-hand. I can see the logic in both strategies/deployments, personally.
An interesting aside... after I made another weak-attempt at seeing what I could google-up, with no luck, but I came across a study that showed how much better RHS's are at scoring goals than Lefties. (They used NHL players in their data).
Honestly, at the end of the day, if you were watching the Russians in the 70s, I'd defer to your knowledge... because I wasn't.
