Comments on: Prospects » Top 5 reasons why Russia failed at WJC

By: John

John — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 07:50:00 +0000

It should be noted that several players on the Gold medal-winning USA team were on loan from the AHL, including the guy (Carlson) who scored the Gold Medal goal in overtime against Canada. As for Canada, their best defenseman, Alex Pietroangelo, was on loan from the NHL. But when the Russian Federation requested the services of Grachev and Voinov from the AHL, and Kulikov from the NHL, those players could not be spared, for some reason. Could nationalism have entered into the decision? Clearly, Grachev and Voinov had a major impact last year in Ottawa, and there is no reason to believe that they might not have made a major contributrion this year as well.
Also, I have never seen Avtsin play, but by all accounts, he is an outstanding player and an excellent goal scorer, and Russia would have benefitted from a few more goals in this tournament. Kugryshev had experience in the past two WJC tournaments, and is an extremely talented skater and puck handler, so it is puzzling why both players were not on the roster.

By: John

John — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 03:07:00 +0000

I wholeheartedly agree with all 5 points that are made, with perhaps a heavy emphasis on poor coaching and lack of spirit. Sometimes it is difficult to know which creates the other – does poor coaching create bad team spirit, or the reverse? For example, on the television broadcasts, the analyst, former long-time NHL forward Dave Reid, repeatedly criticized Russian forwards for failure to skate back to the defensive zone to help out their defensemen partners. The result – often times 2 Russian defensemen having to fend off 3 or 4 opposing attackers! Those numbers didn’t work out well for Russia. Why don’t forwards come back to help out on defense? It is either poor coaching, a lack of effort, or both. You are right in saying that the junior program must be upgraded to give greater support to Olympic and World Championship programs. The talent is certainly available to Russian coaches!

By: Alexander Zaitsev

Alexander Zaitsev — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 23:16:00 +0000

The more Plyuschev speaks the more I think it’s mostly his fault. Now I read that Plyuschev won’t quit because he thinks this failure is not his fault.
There is a real war in the Russian media. Sport-Express came up with a “Filatov against Plyuschev” title. Filatov is blaming Plyuschev for poor coaching, Plyuschev is blaming Filatov for poor captainship.
Soon we will have an interview with Filatov translated so you’ll be able to read yourself.

By: Timbo

Timbo — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 21:20:00 +0000

While I can’t speak to some roster decisions – Russia seems to have an abundance of hockey talent, on any team they choose – it did seem puzzling that Kugryshev was left off the team, that guy is nasty.
But, I think a bigger reason was that players like Evgeni Grachev were not allowed to participate by their pro clubs – he is potentially a world-class talent, and there simply aren’t enough of those, from any country. One of the Russian players acknowledged this publicly, IIRC.
Russia always has a strong d-corps, but I was also surprised at the decision to not include the Caps’ Orlov.
All that said, the Olympics are right around the corner, and I just hope Team USA doesn’t have to face Team Russia – well, until the Finals, anyway! Everybody’s talking about Canada, but talent-wise, Russia is just scary-good. Malkin and Ovechkin might not even play on the same line – yikes.