Is there a case for Kapustin over Alexandrov?
Both were WC´s all-star 2x, neither of them was directoriate´s best forward.
Top 10 scoring placements (WC, OG):
Kapustin: 3., 4., 6., 8.
top 5: 2x
top 10: 4x
Alexandrov: 1., 4., 6., 8., 8., 9., 10.
top 5: 2x
top 10: 7x
Kapustin was an all-star in 1981 when he wasn´t in top 10 scoring so that´s +1 to his four very good tournaments. But Alexandrov managed to sneak himself into top 10 more often. What about his competition? Alexandrov certainly competed with extremely talented Soviet forwards, but Czechoslovak forwards in 60s and late 50s weren´t nearly as good as those who came in 70s or possibly even in early 80s, with whom Kapustin had to compete. Not to mention much higher quality of Canadians after 1977. So?
3) Kapustin was an official WHC all-star in 1978 and 1981, but he also was so close in voting with Bill Barber in 1982 that it was almost a tie, and he was listed as (an unofficial?) 2nd team All-Star in 1982
Maybe it should be reminded that they started to select the All-Star players only in 1961, so Alexandrov missed some possible choices in 1957-60.
Yes, Kapustin was a 2nd team All-Star in 1982 (source:
Suuri Jääkiekkoteos 3), but Alexandrov got 4th most votes among forwards in 1965 after Jirik, Almetov and Loktev (= the 1965 WHC All-Star forwards), so he most certainly would have been in the 2nd all-star team in that WHC. Anyway, since we don't have the full voting results from every year, I'm not sure how relevant these pieces of information are.
Is there a case for Kapustin over Alexandrov? If one thinks that a secondary star of 1970s/early 1980s is better than their best player in the early/mid-1960s, then yes. Personally I don't.
And what about their domestic stats/play?
A few things:
1) The quality of competition isn't even close to the same. Kapustin competed with first the end of the great 70s Soviets, then the Green Unit on his own team. Also had much better Candians/Americans (NHLers who missed the playoffs!) as you said, and a much better team Sweden.
Come on now, the Swedish teams post 1974 were very, shall we say, patchy. Of course Swedish hockey and its players got better all the time throughout the years, but in Alexandrov's time there were always the best Swedish players playing (the same with Finland and Czechoslovakia), and were much more used to playing with each other throughout the season, whereas in Kapustin's time they never had all their best (with the exception of the 1976 and 1981 Canada Cups) and the players/lines always changed from one tournament to another. I can agree that the Swedish teams e.g. at the 1977 WHC and 1981 WHC were probably superior than any
Tre Kronor during Alexandrov's days, but in 1976, 1978, 1979... meh meh meh.
And are we gonna judge teams only on paper now, and not care about the results or the quality of their play at all? Despite having NHLers, those Canadian teams played often quite poorly and reports of their bad behaviour on and off the ice and drinking escapades are quite notorious.
And it's pretty lame to bring Americans into discussion; just see how 'well' they did in the WHCs during Kapustin's time. We might as well be talking about West Germans there... they even dropped to Pool B in 1982 (finished even behind Italy!), and thus did not play in the 1983 WHC (Pool A). And the Soviets didn't always even face them in other years either, since USA never made it to the medal round when Kapustin played. It's only in the 1976 & 1981 CCs when Kapustin & USSR faced a noteworthy Team USA (Kapustin did not play in the 1980 Olympics).
