@Guadana @Kshahdoo
I've thought about this before. The Russian style of hockey does seem to have a certain element of creativity to it, and more in a teamwork sense than individual efforts. I also wondered if Russian coaches in general heavily emphasize puck support in their systems
I could get on board with Russian puck support is better than North America.. but passing, it's seems hard to say that the average KHL player is a better passer than average NHL. Has to be the other way around
Its the other side of the question.
First of all we should understand - Russia has deep sporting system. And hockey isnt the first or may be even the second most popular sport. Russia has okay economics, but the level of the middle citizen isnt really good for hockey. So a lot of talented young kids are trying themselves in other sports. Its nowhere close to Canada where hockey is the first sport.
Canada is building their hockey more on intensive game with a lot of forecheck and pressure. Its great to learn how to pass all different ways, but on the speed and pressure of higher level there are different and more important things like understanding where every player should be in different situations, cover the zone, hard work with the pace of the game etc.
Russia learn from it, but Soviet school is still works(because it works, even if someone dont think so). And of course there are a lot of passing works in training camps. Different exercises. But when the game is playing on the high level - the level of talent is going to meaning more. Reason why Russia won a lot of WC or Olympic games in 2018, but cant win it against more talented and deep Canada team on higher level.
We have example of Finnish team, where they are playing on positional defensive game and won a lot of important games even with less talented roster and not flashy actions on the edge.
Swedes are trying to implement different ways of schemes to play. In SHL I saw how some teams create opportunity for making open shot without pressure when entering offensive zone 4 on 3.
And pandemic and cold war 2.0 broke the chance to see great tournament where all teams could have good rosters. Its not a problem that Russians(because popularity of sport) or Finns(because of population) have weaker rosters. Its condition. And its very interesting to see how different countries are trying to win by their method, in the same time using some part of opponents expirience.
