Padawan said:
I think Datsyuk was fairly invisible, surprisingly I might add. Ovechkin seemed to be always there for Team Russia when they made it difficult for Team Finland. I think Ovechkin was the creative force for Team Russia against Team Finland.
Are we talking the whole tournament or the game against Finland? It shouldn't even matter really. Datsyuk was excellent defensively against Finland, killed penalties, and uncharacteristically levelled a Finnish forward comming into the zone with a solid open-ice hit. He was one of the few players, (Kovalev and Afinogenov also come to mind) who had no trouble penetrating the Finnish trap on his own. He was the only one on the first line that passed, and unlike most of the other forwards, did not turn over the puck once. I dunno, the puck seems to be magnetically attached to the tape on his stick, no matter how much pressure Datsyuk is under, he just seemed to make the deke and end up with the puck.
Ovechkin on the other hand could NOT penetrate the Finnish trap at all. For all his attempts at flashiness, he really did not achieve anything at all. Datsyuk was a more valuble asset to the team this game than Ovechkin, as in every other game. For the record, I did not like Datsyuk prior to the comencement of this tournament.
Having watched all the Russia games, this is my ranking of the top10 Russian players:
1. Pavel Datsyuk
2. Evgeni Nabokov
3. Alexander Korolyuk
4. Evgeni Malkin
5. Alexander Ovechkin
6. Danny Markov
7. Maxim Sushinsky
8. Darius Kasparitis
9. Viktor Kozlov
10. A tie between a few guys who were okay.