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Why does Russia play so far below their potential?

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Atas2000 said:
Coaching:

Bykov was a liberal who created a neat atmopsphere in the locker room, but had no concept, ecpecially when a tough game was on the line. He obviously expected players to do things on their own.

Billyaletdinov just turned his own opposite right before the Olympics. God knows why. His strange decisions before and during Olympics were just mind boggling.

Znarok lacks thorough hockey knowledge and lets his personal quarrels get in the way.

So 3 coaches in a row weren't exactly a recipe for success.

Mismanaging assents is part of the coaching problem.

Defence is not top notch obviosly. There seems to be a big gap between the last great generation of russian deencemen and the next one if it is on the horizon with Provorom, Sergachev and likes.

Reduced roles is not the problem I think. But the above factors are enough to hinder some top performance.
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I agree 100%. Look at the avalanche last year and Edmonton last year and a couple years before. A poor defence greatly hinders their own teams offence. Spending a shift getting the puck out of your end, with a poor transition game and the offence suffers greatly.
 
First thing is, since the breakup of the USSR, while Russia still has a good talent pool it isn't what it used to be....and secondly the old USSR teams were totally system-based and pioneered the idea of five-man units....what I notice about the post-cold-war Russian teams is that they still have tremendous individual skills, but their team play just sucks at times. Poor decisions in the neutral zone; turnovers in vulnerable areas and the non-NHL players really struggle on the smaller ice. Maybe this is a product of some of their best young players coming over to play in NA junior leagues....Whatever, just not as strong as they used to be.
 
Caitlyn Jenner said:
Defence is horrible

Defensive game from their top forwards is horrible

Goalies are nothing to write home about
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Bobrovsky had a solid game. If he continues in the same vein, doesn't look like Russia is giving anything away on that front. (I'm not sure anyone has outstanding elite goaltending. For Finland it starting to look like a thing of the past. Just when we are getting some great forwards after a long wait... do we ever have the full package together, LOL.)
 
It's been mentioned (and not to be insulting), but it really is them trying to recreate the formula that's failed in Edmonton the last decade.

Several high powered offensive stars, but all somewhat similar; a horrid defence for the level they're competing at, like showing up with a knife to a gun fight; and a lack of cohesion, lilely due to points 1 and 2.

They just never managed to replace the last generation's prime Gonchar, Zubov, Markov, ect
 
A couple major factors. I'd say the biggest are these. First there defence is subpar and they don't have the uber elite goalie to bail them out. The other major one is this, while they have amazing scoring forwards, they truly lack high-end elite 2-way forwards outside of Datsyuk. They don't really have an answer to teams who have multiple high-end 2-way forwards spread throughout multiple lines. Canada for example has Thornton, Toews, Bergeron and ROR, and most others are no slouches. I love Malkin as a player, but he isn't going to be your shutdown center and neither is Kuznetsov, which puts a lot of weight on Datsyuk's line.
 
93LEAFS said:
A couple major factors. I'd say the biggest are these. First there defence is subpar and they don't have the uber elite goalie to bail them out. The other major one is this, while they have amazing scoring forwards, they truly lack high-end elite 2-way forwards outside of Datsyuk. They don't really have an answer to teams who have multiple high-end 2-way forwards spread throughout multiple lines. Canada for example has Thornton, Toews, Bergeron and ROR, and most others are no slouches. I love Malkin as a player, but he isn't going to be your shutdown center and neither is Kuznetsov, which puts a lot of weight on Datsyuk's line.
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2-way-forwardism is so overrated or better to say Russa has enough forwards who might be underratedin ther 2-way ablity just because they are Russians actually.
 
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Because they have learned to accept failure, they simply don't want it, they need to clean out the losing culture, bring in new and better coaches, they need to bring in a guy that can build a TEAM right now they aren't a TEAM, a team would have finished off Canada but they couldn't because they don't have that killer instinct.

They had they Canadian beast down and bleeding but they didn't kill it, and it cost them.

They need to kill it.
 
Atas2000 said:
2-way-forwardism is so overrated or better to say Russa has enough forwards who might be underratedin ther 2-way ablity just because they are Russians actually.
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Yup, agreed. OP is out to lunch on that one.

Love how he includes a player that was just added a day ago (ROR) as well.
 
The defense just doesnt do enough. Not strong enough in their zone and not good enough at supporting the offense.

Russia needs Provorov and Sergachev to be the real deal in the worst way.

Zaitsev is a nice piece for the future of their blueline though.
 
Caitlyn Jenner said:
And when (if, actually) they are ready for Olympic play 6 years from now, OV Malkin Datsyuk and many others will be no where near good players anymore.
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Russia will continue to churn out more high-end forwards though. They'll always be okay in that department.
 
I don't think they play below their potential, I'd say they've just simply been overrated due to the high scoring forwards on the team.

Defence wins championships, this tends to be a pretty accurate saying. And right now, Zaitsev, a guy with zero NHL games under his belt, has been their #1 D.
 
I think in 2010 huge reson why they was so sucks is that evrybody expect too much of them and they just not show thier real play becouse of this pushing. Or maybe they was really sucks compare to canada
 
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Russia (on paper) is a HF Boards wet dream. Everyone gets in a lather for how stacked they are up front and forget that there is more to success than a potent top six forward group. As skilled a team as they are there are significant holes. Fortunately they seem to have a goalie (Bob) who can compensate a bit for the team's deficiencies.
 
416Leafer said:
Defence wins championships, this tends to be a pretty accurate saying.
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It certainly gets said a lot, but when Finland has had good (team rather than individual) defense but lacked in offense, not many championships won. Seems to me like you need both. At least the saying is biasing it too strongly on defense only?
 
Caitlyn Jenner said:
And when (if, actually) they are ready for Olympic play 6 years from now, OV Malkin Datsyuk and many others will be no where near good players anymore.
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I'm sure over the next 6 years they'll develop more good forwards along with guys like Kuznetsov, Panarin and Tarasenko still being good enough to contribute
 
Torque said:
It certainly gets said a lot, but when Finland has had good (team rather than individual) defense but lacked in offense, not many championships won. Seems to me like you need both. At least the saying is biasing it too strongly on defense only?
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Canada is really the only country that when they ice their absolute best is elite top-to-bottom. Every other country has holes. The U.S. for instance is currently weak (relatively) up the middle. If you have holes you have to come together as a team and the sum has to be greater than the parts. That's what drives Finland's success of late at both the junior and senior levels.
 
sharks9 said:
I'm sure over the next 6 years they'll develop more good forwards along with guys like Kuznetsov, Panarin and Tarasenko still being good enough to contribute
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Guys like Rubstov, Svechnikov, Guryanov, Nichushkin, etc could be contributing.
 
Torque said:
It certainly gets said a lot, but when Finland has had good (team rather than individual) defense but lacked in offense, not many championships won. Seems to me like you need both. At least the saying is biasing it too strongly on defense only?
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Rankings for SC winner in GAA vs GF since 2010:

GAA
2016 - 6th
2015 - 2nd
2014 - 1st
2013 - 1st
2012 - 2nd
2011 - 2nd
2010 - 6th

Goals For
2016 - 3rd
2015 - 17th
2014 - 26th
2013 - 2nd
2012 - 29th
2011 - 5th
2010 - 3rd

Shows a bias towards defence over offence. 3/7 winners had below average offence, the worst defensively was still 6th, well above average.
 
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