Thoughts on 1 already mentioned player who is interesting to talk about but who at the same time has some fundamental flaws in his CV - Helmuts Balderis.
Whoever puts the greatest Latvian player all-time on his list should know that Balderis' case rests primarily on his impressive Soviet league stats, since Balderis' international career left a lot on the table. Despite his talent, he didn't accumulate many individual awards. He finished 3rd in Soviet league scoring in 1975, but his breakout season occured in 1976 (7th or 8th in SPOTY voting). Here, he showed decent scoring on both levels as he finally started to play for USSR team on the big stage. Still, clearly below a top-tier of Euro wingers such as Kharlamov, Yakushev, Shalimov or Martinec at this point.
Hit the peak season in 1977 (1st in SPOTY), top scorer in the league, scored a lot internationally as well. Won Directoriate best forward award, WHC 77 All-Star winger. Excellent season for sure, but I'd point out that this happened at a low-point of Soviet hockey. Soviets finished 3rd or 4th at Canada Cup in the beginning and then finished only 3rd at WHC 1977 at the end. Milan Nový over in Czechoslovakia had just as good a season as Balderis, maybe a little better.
From this point, Tikhonov brings Balderis to CSKA, where he suddenly stops being the main guy, and playing in CSKA lower lines and with (I assume..) less PP time caused his production to plummet. Balderis league scoring is now twice as small as in 1977 and while his WHC 1978 productivity is still solid, he got outvoted by his two Soviet RW teammates Mikhailov and Maltsev by the media members. Same thing happened in SPOTY voting, Balderis finishes solidly 5th but behind Mikhailov and Maltsev.
In 1979, Balderis' domestic scoring improves (6th), but he's still just fourth in CSKA team... I think Balderis' performance at Challenge Cup was pretty good but his WHC '79 showing was no better than average. More importantly, Balderis received zero votes at the end of the season's SPOTY / Izvestia voting. 14 Soviet players other than Balderis obtained at least a vote... 1979 was a strong season for Euro wingers, RWers especially - Mikhailov, Makarov, Martinec and Marian Stastny had all better seasons than Balderis.
Balderis in 1980 continues to improve his league scoring - now finishes 2nd overall behind Makarov - but to no avail. Balderis' 9 points in 7 games won't help Soviets to overcome the upset by young US team at the '80 Olympics... Problem with Balderis was that he as a player didn't contribute much outside offense, and when he didn't deliver some clutch scoring, there wasn't much left to admire of. Both Soviet and European sportswriters acknowledged this again when Helmuts did not get a vote in Izvestia voting (at least 15 Euros did) and when he got a one measly vote in SPOTY voting (oficially 16th best USSR player in the 1980..).
After this, Balderis returns to Dinamo Riga and stops playing for the National team. I'm not sure about details here - was this more a Balderis' initiative or got Tikhonov fed up with Balderis' cherrypicking? I have no idea. Only sure thing was that the animosity between the Latvian and the coach grew out of proportion.
Balderis' career from here onwards followed a familiar pattern. He remained a top Soviet league scorer (7th in 1981, 10th in 1982, 1st in 1983, 3rd in 1985) but remained irrelevent in international competition. Balderis spent the 1980s in a role he was most comfortable in - a bad team's star forward, for whom the rest of his teammates work for.
Only after Balderis' scoring title in 1983 (the only 1980s Soviet scoring champion not named Makarov!) Viktor Tikhonov found himself in a situation where he re-included the Latvian into National team. There was nothing special about Balderis' WHC '83 comeback though. He posted respectable numbers again, but was left off 1st and 2nd WHC All-Star teams anyway.
Balderis earned some votes in the SPOTY voting only in 1985 (10th overall), nothing more in the 80s... In the end, even if you'd rather take his league scoring as the best indicator of his "true" level of play, where does it put Balderis globally?
There was some stiff competition just among the European RWs in the 1st half of 1980s.. You had Makarov there all the time, you had Maltsev going strong in early 80s, you had Shalimov as a member of that famous Spartak line (Kapustin-Shepelev-Shalimov) that greatly proved itself against top NHLers as well, you had Drozdetsky's career peak in 1984 winning the SPOTY that year, you had Martinec having fairly decent 1980 and 1981 seasons, you had Jiří Lála having excellent first half of the 1980s himself, you had Jari Kurri over in NHL scoring at ppg level right from 1981 onwards, you had Marián Šťastný in Quebec, you had some good seasons of Anders Hedberg...
I'll repeat what I've said in the beginning, Balderis' case lies in his consistent and stable scoring production primarily on the domestic level. His individual trophy collection is otherwise very thin. Throughout his career, Balderis struggled to find himself useful enough in a loaded, talent-heavy USSR roster. This raises a question mark about Balderis' adaptability; especially compared to dozens of players who were able to strike balance between their play on two different levels (USSR and clubs). Even within Balderis' own generation, you'd find forwards such as Sergei Kapustin or Viktor Shalimov who ended their careers with lower points but with higher degree of admiration from contemporary hockey observers and with broader career credentials.
This project will suffer no damage if Balderis doesn't appear in the discussion. He is a top 200-250 player.
