The "roster advantage" is clearly that Russia gets a far higher percentage of its best players at the World Championship than other countries do basically every year. It's certainly not an unfair "advantage" though. I am interested in the "reffing advantage" because I haven't observed it.
More than anything, I think that this is just Jussi fulfilling his perceived purpose in life of throwing rain on any positive pronouncements about Russia or Russian hockey. He is ubiquitous in patrolling Russian-oriented threads to make posts of the kind that you see above, so this is pretty ho-hum stuff that he always offers.
In terms of a "roster advantage," Russia clearly had one in the 2012 WC's, with a line of Datsyuk-Ovechkin-Semin, and Malkin on another line. And the 2014 team had Ovechkin and Malkin for the last 3 games, but it is only an advantage if the surrounding group is top-line as well. In 2015, you could say that Canada had a "roster advantage," because they had mostly national team candidates on the team, while Russia, with Malkin and Tarasenko (they had an exhausted Ovechkin for the last 2 games, just 30 hours after skating off the ice in Game 7 of a Stanley Cup semi-final), lost a total of 3 games. Having the offensive skills of Malkin and Ovechkin is of no value if they are playing defense in the defensive zone for 80% of the game. And how does that rebut my point that the performance of the Russians is far better now than in the 1990 and 2000 Decade?
I think I know what Jussi means about a "reffing advantage," and for once, I wholeheartedly agree. I think, despite his love of Finland and deep hatred of all things Russian, that he was deeply disturbed and disgusted by the "reffing advantage" that played out in Helsinki in the GMG of the WJC last week. Like all of us, I think Jussi hates the old NHL tactic of evening up the balance sheet of penalties at the end of the night. But like the rest of us, I think Jussi is very suspicious when penalty minutes total 40-4 in favor of one team, as it did last week in Helsinki, that the refs may have perceived a "good guy, bad guy" scenario when they crusade with their whistles to create an environment where goodness can triumph.
Jussi's sense of justice is offended when a referee only calls 1 foul against a team for the entire game (the other was a delay of game call for shooting the puck out of the rink), and that final penalty at the 8 minute mark of the 1st period, because he fears that it sends a message to the teams that "we're only going to call penalties against the good guys if there is an actual decapitation such as beheading with a stick, but we're going to send the bad guys to the box every time they lean on someone." He fears that that sends a message to the good guys that they can do whatever they want without fear of feeling short-handed, but if the bad guys fail to act meek and submissive, they will be flagrantly punished. Finally, I think there is something Jussi and I agree on!
