Round 2, Vote 4 (HOH Top 50 Non-NHL Europeans)

[Thegreatwar]

So going from world class players to useful NHLers in one season is OK?

Larionov 74-17-27-44 -5

Krutov 61-11-23-34 -5

Not much difference.

But the following seasons sure did as Krutov fell off the face of the earth, and by all accounts his 1989-90 was worse than the stats show

 

[Theokritos]

by all accounts his 1989-90 was worse than the stats show

Indeed. One factor is that Krutov got scratched when he didn't score while Larionov was good enough to still play even when he went through a scoring drought. Which hurts his PPG relative to Krutov, but actually highlights that he was considerably better.

 

[steve141]

So going from world class players to useful NHLers in one season is OK?

Larionov 74-17-27-44 -5

Krutov 61-11-23-34 -5

Not much difference.

It's not a feather in the cap for either. However, the fact that Larionov got increasingly better over the following years shows that his weak results during the first years were probably not a fair representation of his hockey skills, but rather an effect of a difficult transition from the Soviet Union, and Soviet hockey, to America and the NHL. His best season statistically came in his seventh year in the Western world.

Also, Larionov was primarily a defensive forward, even in the Soviet system, where he would often trade places with Fetisov on defense when Fetisov rushed.

 

[Hobnobs]

Indeed. One factor is that Krutov got scratched when he didn't score while Larionov was good enough to still play even when he went through a scoring drought. Which hurts his PPG relative to Krutov, but actually highlights that he was considerably better.

That is pretty common for centers to be useful for things other than scoring.

But the following seasons sure did as Krutov fell off the face of the earth, and by all accounts his 1989-90 was worse than the stats show

He didnt fall off, he plunged into a depression fueled by alcoholism. You cant really judge hockey skill by that.

Krutov had already started to decline. He was pretty average in the world championships prior to going over to NA. And in CSKA he had fallen behind in the depth chart as well. It seems basically that you lot are judging an entire career on what that player did in a debut season in the NHL during that players twillight years.

Like judging Cassels, Hull and the rest of the players who couldnt play after the lock out.

 

[Theokritos]

That is pretty common for centers to be useful for things other than scoring.

And since Larionov fulfilled that, he was considerably better/more useful than Krutov, despite of what the scoring stats seem to suggest.

And in CSKA he had fallen behind in the depth chart as well.

He was still the first line LW. I'm not sure what you have in mind.

 

[Theokritos]

The weakest players this round in my personal opinion (as a non-voter):

Ragulin:
Soviet All-star annually from 1963-1969 (plus 1961 and 1972). International recognition annually from 1963-1967, but nothing afterwards even though he had just turned 26 in '67. Not what you want from a candidate at this point.

Nový:
Impressive scoring stats. Strong Golden Stick record, but competition is an issue (Martinec and the other elite forwards of that generation were past their prime or retired and Peter Šťastný had already defected when Nový won two of his three Golden Sticks). Little international recognition outside of 1976 (All-star at both the WHC and the Canada Cup) and apparently not rated too highly in his home country in hindsight (ranked 17th in the 1998 "Best Czech Players of All Time" poll, behind Martinec, Holeček, Nedomanský, Suchý and Pospíšil but also Ivan Hlinka and both Holík brothers).

Larionov:
Soviet All-star 1983 and 1986-1988. Weaker "Best Player" resume than Fetisov, Makarov and Krutov: One big year where he won it all in 1988, apart from that several times in the 4th-6th range. International recognition: All-star at the 1983 and 1986 WHC. A plus: his lonegvity in the NHL after 1989. Does he rank ahead of Kasatonov overall or behind him?

 

[VMBM]

Petrov is next guy who should be added. 8 times in top 10 scoring (7x WC + 1x OG) including 3 times winning the scoring. This resume is a good deal above Larionov, Novy and Yakushev. And his excellent domestic scoring on top.

People talk about Petrov's Soviet player of the year voting record, which is not great vis-à-vis his scoring, but it's actually no worse than Vasiliev's and Vasiliev (already) will be at least 2 places above him on the list.

His international record is clearly better than Larionov's and Novy's, and better than Yakushev's too, although Yakushev has the WHC best forward award that Petrov never won (WHC all-stars: Petrov 4, Yak 2).
IMO it would be especially ridiculous to have Novy very near to Petrov. Compare them internationally (head-to-head): Petrov's international career lasted about 12 years, Novy's 8 years at best. Petrov has 4 all-star berths at the World Championships, Novy only the one in 1976 - in a tournament where Petrov did not play. In addition, Novy was an all-star at the 1976 Canada Cup, which is a very good accomplishment, but once again it was a tournament where Petrov did not play. And I'm not saying that it's anywhere given that Petrov would have been the all-star center over Novy (and others) in those tournaments, but still, when they were head-to-head at the World Championships, Novy did not win any awards and Petrov won 3 (1975, 1977, 1979). Furthermore, Petrov's international stats are way better than Novy's, any way you look at it. Petrov is also one of the few Soviet players whose domestic stats/scoring is about as impressive as Novy's. Also, I think he was the superior defensive player and far more used penalty-killer.

BTW, Novy's international record is the reason why I will not vote for him in this round; even Ragulin had a better and a far longer international career.

Is there a reason for Petrov to be dropped out of top 4 this voting?

No reason in my opinion.

I can see only Krutov (terrific peak, long enough prime), Pospisil (a very good, long career overall) and Suchy (terrific peak) having a case over him. For me, only Krutov will be above him in this round... I think.

 

[VMBM]

Also, Larionov was primarily a defensive forward, even in the Soviet system, where he would often trade places with Fetisov on defense when Fetisov rushed.

Yet it was Krutov and Makarov whom the Soviets primarily used on the penalty kill.

 

[VMBM]

A scoring line player from the USSR should be expected to be in the top 10 in scoring at the WHCs and OGs very often. Honestly, raw scoring data from tournaments that include the likes of Poland and West Germany shouldn't be very meaningful.

Yakushev's case rests on how well he did against the good teams. Not saying Yakushev should necessarily be ahead of Petrov, just that I couldn't care less about who racks up more points in blowouts against terrible teams.

Are you insinuating something or are you just generally saying that "raw stats don't tell everything" (which is true of course)??? Like, do you have some evidence that e.g. Petrov was feasting on poor teams at the World Championships more so than others (including Yakushev)?

At least vs. Czechoslovakia Petrov did much better, statistically and presumably in other ways too:

Vladimir Petrov vs. CSSR
table missing

Alexander Yakushev vs. CSSR
table missing

Against various Canadian teams (although only 1 really good team on paper in 1972), Yakushev was known for terrific performances, of course, but if that would be the main criterion, then he should be ranked ahead of many other Soviet forwards too (who are already on the list).

 

[Sturminator]

I was always operating under the assumption "Larionov intimated" refers to something Larionov (supposedly) told someone from the Canucks organization circa 1990. Willes certainly did not hear it from Larionov himself. When quizzed about it by Sturminator back in March, Willes pointed to the very book you mention and gave a faulty rendition of what the book contains:



The first issue here of course is that it's Larionov himself who is being fed "pills" if you stick with the way Willes puts it. The second point is that he's implicitly conceding he hasn't heard it from Larionov himself since he needs to refer to the book. The third issue is that the book does not actually say what Willes claims it says above. To his credit he says he's only "going on memory" (so we can hopefully assume his published work is an more thorough effort) and later he comes back to Sturminator with this correction:



Which is clearly referring to the well-known passage from Larionov's 1988 Open Letter to Tikhonov quoted in his book which refers to the 1982 World Championship, but also says that all of the Green Unit players, including Krutov, refused to take those injections.

If we don't want to assume Willes' "Larionov intimated" claim in his book too is simply based on a faulty recollection of what Larionov's book says, we need to assume what I have suggested before: One or two of the Canucks organization members Willes spoke to had pointed to Larionov as their source. However, I'm not even sure about that anymore since Sturminator asked Willes the following question: "What specific reasons did the members of the Canucks organization give you for their assertions regarding Krutov? Were they basically passing on what Igor Larionov had told them, or did they have their own reasons independent of what Larionov did or didn't say?" His answer:



Sturminator explicitly asked about Larionov and Willes failed to answer his question in the manner one would expect: by either confirming or denying that one of the Vancouver staff members had pointed to Larionov. Instead he answers with the reasoning that Krutov was out of shape etc – nothing new and no additional insight, of course. Larionov is left out of the equation altogether. Instead Willes jumps straight from Krutov's bad shape ("When he got to Vancouver, he was a shell of that player") to the opinion of the Vancouver staff member ("The member of the coaching staff singled out steroids") so that you get the impression it was the latter guy himself who came up with the steroids explanation/assumption without referring to Larionov.

Yes, having been one of Krutov's biggest critics vis-a-vis doping in the past, I came away from the exchange with Willes of the opinion that at least that part of the case against Krutov is weaker than it had seemed to be. I tried as hard as I could to formulate precise questions, and was disappointed at the imprecision of the answers given.

I am still quite unsure of Krutov's proper place in the history of the game, and I think in a project like this we have to weigh the possibility of cheating rather than make binary distinctions (though this will be achieved through aggregate voting results, anyway), but I am more willing than I was before to entertain the idea that the curious timeline of his career is is attributable to other explanations. In short, I give the allegations somewhat less weight than I did before.

 

[Sturminator]

Now is probably a good time to debate Pospisil vs. Suchy, so I'll get that started by re-posting something I wrote last year:

Regarding the defensemen:

Jan Suchy______: 17.9, 15.7, 13.9, 2.1, 1.4, 0.6, 0.05

Frantisek Pospisil: 15.8, 14.5, 10.2, 9.6, 8.1, 7.5, 7.0, 6.2, 4.9, 2.8

Jiri Bubla_______: 13.2, 8.4, 5.7, 3.6, 3.6, 2.3, 1.0, 1.0, 1.0

Oldrich Machac__: 6.1, 5.6, 4.6, 2.6, 1.6, 1.6, 1.3, 1.2

- both Suchy and Pospisil look to have had a single peak season cut off from the above. Piecing information together from these two sources, we find that Pospisil scored 42 points (in some combination) in 1967-68, and Suchy put up a line of 7-20-27. Given that Pospisil beat Suchy 14.5% to 13.9% in Golden Stick voting in 1970-71 when they had virtually the same scoring totals, respectively (Pospisil again 42 points, and Suchy 29), we can probably assume that Pospisil was at least somewhat better than Suchy in this season, and that they were both at their peaks. Suchy was an all-star at the World Championships in 1968, and it is generally considered the beginning of his peak, at any rate.

Looking over their careers, if you conservatively fudge voting numbers for 1967-68 (fudged numbers marked), you come up with something like this:

Jan Suchy |17.9| 15.7| 13.9| 12.5 | 2.1| 1.4| 0.6,| 0.05|||
Frantisek Pospisil| 15.8| 14.5| 13 | 10.2| 9.6| 8.1| 7.5| 7.0| 6.2| 4.9| 2.8

- an interesting comparison. Suchy has a clear advantage in peak value, but falls off a cliff after his 4th best season (at the age of 26 - interestingly the same age that saw the end of Bobby Orr's peak) while Pospisil continues to be a great defenseman until the age of 34.

- also of interest here is that Suchy and Pospisil are often considered to be of somewhat different generations because Suchy's peak comes first and then Pospisil continues on to be a star into the late-70's, but Pospisil was actually born a few months before Suchy.

- the question of why Suchy's voting totals fall off so fast seems relatively clear from the data. First, his offensive explosion was already tailing off before the car crash. Suchy's 29 points in the 1970-71 season are way off of his previous pace, and Pospisil had already passed him in the voting. It seems that Suchy's offensive production simply slipped, and with it his value in the eyes of the voters. He still got votes in 1971-72 after the crash, but not nearly as many, which is perhaps not surprising for an offensive defenseman whose offensive output fell by about one third, from 29 to 20 points.

- I don't think there was a conspiracy against Suchy among the apparatchiks. We see Suchy get votes here and there throughout the rest of his career (somewhat inexplicably even a few in the season when I think he was in prison), pretty much in line with his offensive production. He and Pospisil are actually quite close in 1973-74 (in what was a bad year for Pospisil) when Suchy scores 23 points, and Suchy gets a handful of votes again in 1976-77, coinciding with a spike in his offense back up to the 20 point mark.

------------------------------------------------------------------

- Bubla and Machac really do appear to be very far behind the top guys. Bubla's got two strong seasons, but nothing else as good as Pospisil's 9th best season, and Machac doesn't really have any peak value, though he seems like he was at least relevant and considered a "good player" for a few seasons, and got more votes than his partner Pospisil in the latter's down 1973-74 season.

- overall, I can't help but think that Frantisek Pospisil is the greatest Czech defenseman of this generation. Unless you just don't care about anything beyond the players' respective 4th best seasons, I think his huge advantage in sustained peak (and outright longevity) easily makes up the difference in high peak between he and Suchy in terms of domestic performance. In international competition, Suchy's got Pospisil beat by one WC all-star appearance, but Pospisil was the captain of three WEC-A gold medal winners and based on the voting of the people who watched those matches (where Pospisil was twice Best Defenseman and once an all-star in the three years the Czechs won gold), he must have been hugely important to the success of the national team. Suchy was the best player when the Czechs took down the Big Red Machine in 1969, but I still think Pospisil comes out ahead on international ice, on the whole.

This argument is using "Golden Stick win shares" as the metric for comparison, and I am forced to fudge (generous to Suchy, I think) results for the 1967-68 season, in which both were beginning their peaks. Anyway, tl;dr - Suchy's peak is clearly higher by this metric, but not by an enormous margin, and Pospisil played at a high level for basically twice as long.

Also in Pospisil's favor is that he was longtime captain of the Czech national team, and his personal performance at that level seems to closely correlate with the success of the team. Pospisil was named to the WEC-A all-star team all three times the Czechs won the tournament in the 1970s.

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

Are you insinuating something or are you just generally saying that "raw stats don't tell everything" (which is true of course)??? Like, do you have some evidence that e.g. Petrov was feasting on poor teams at the World Championships more so than others (including Yakushev)?

I wasn't "insinuating" anything in particular - I meant exactly what I said and nothing more - raw stats (specifically top 10s) for players on a mega-stacked team who played half their games against doormats aren't all that meaningful. Thank you for running the comparison against CSSR.

____

Specific to Petrov - Why was he never named best forward when he led the tournament in scoring 3 times?

But anyway, you guys are mainly right, I do think he looks pretty good this round.

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

Now is probably a good time to debate Pospisil vs. Suchy, so I'll get that started by re-posting something I wrote last year:



This argument is using "Golden Stick win shares" as the metric for comparison, and I am forced to fudge (generous to Suchy, I think) results for the 1967-68 season, in which both were beginning their peaks. Anyway, tl;dr - Suchy's peak is clearly higher by this metric, but not by an enormous margin, and Pospisil played at a high level for basically twice as long.

Also in Pospisil's favor is that he was longtime captain of the Czech national team, and his personal performance at that level seems to closely correlate with the success of the team. Pospisil was named to the WEC-A all-star team all three times the Czechs won the tournament in the 1970s.

My issue with a comparison like this one (and it's something I meant to bring up before this round):

Why do we care about Golden Stick voting? Because it is a representative of what people who watched them play think.

Yet in retrospect, who do people who watched them play rank higher? Suchy. Every single list I've seen. Even Karel Gut, who feuded with Suchy, ranked him exactly one spot higher than Pospisil.

I do wonder if we are outsmarting ourselves by parsing Golden Hockey Stick voting so closely in this manner. That said, the work by you, VMBM, and DN38 certainly shows that Pospisil belongs in this group of players, not far behind Suchy, IMO.

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

WHC All-Star voting & directorate awards

Better late than never, I suppose

Defensemen

Valeri Vasiliev (USSR)

• Directorate Best Defenseman (1973, 1977, 1979)
• All Star Defenseman (1974, 1975, 1977, 1979, 1981)

Jan Suchy (CSSR)

• Directorate Best Defenseman (1969, 1971)
• All Star Defenseman (1968, 1969, 1970, 1971)

Alexander Ragulin (USSR)

• Directorate Best Defenseman (1966)
• All Star Defenseman (1963, 1964, 1965, 1966, 1967)
  Note earlier in thread that he received very few votes after 1967

Alexei Kasatonov (USSR)

• Directorate Best Defenseman (1983)
• All Star Defenseman (1982, 1983, 1985, 1986, 1991)
• Note there were no WCs in the Olympic years of 1984 and 1988

Frantisek Pospisil (CSSR)

• Directorate Best Defenseman (1972, 1976)
• All Star Defenseman (1972, 1976, 1977)

Forwards

Vladimir Krutov

• Directorate Best Forward (1986, 1987)
• All Star Forward (1983, 1985, 1986, 1987)
• Note there were no WCs in Olympic years 1984 and 1988

Vladimir Petrov

• All Star Forward (1973, 1975, 1977, 1979)

Alexander Yakushev

• Directorate Best Forward (1975)
• All Star Forward (1974, 1975)

Igor Larionov

• All Star Forward (1983, 1986)

Milan Novy

• All Star Forward (1976)

_______________________

Accolades at other major tournaments (please let me know if I'm missing any):

Milan Novy:

• All-Star Forward 1976 Canada Cup (only CSSR All-Star)
• Led 1980 Olympics in scoring

Vladimir Krutov

• All-Star Forward 1987 Canada Cup
• Led 1988 Olympics in scoring

Alexander Yakushev

• Soviet leading scorer and widely regarded as best forward in the 1972 Summit Series vs NHL All-Stars
• Soviet leading scorer and widely regarded as best forward in the 1974 Summit Series vs WHA All-Stars

Alexei Kasatonov

• All-Star Defenseman 1981 Canada Cup

 

[Batis]

- both Suchy and Pospisil look to have had a single peak season cut off from the above. Piecing information together from these two sources, we find that Pospisil scored 42 points (in some combination) in 1967-68, and Suchy put up a line of 7-20-27. Given that Pospisil beat Suchy 14.5% to 13.9% in Golden Stick voting in 1970-71 when they had virtually the same scoring totals, respectively (Pospisil again 42 points, and Suchy 29), we can probably assume that Pospisil was at least somewhat better than Suchy in this season, and that they were both at their peaks. Suchy was an all-star at the World Championships in 1968, and it is generally considered the beginning of his peak, at any rate.

The scoring stats those sources have for Suchy and Pospisil in 67/68 is completely wrong according to the topscorers list.

Czech newspapers had the following scoring list in 1967/68:

1. Havel - 54 points (39+15)
2. Nedomanský - 50 pts (33+17)
3. Jar.Holik - 45 pts (26+19)
4. Kochta - 44 pts (22+22)
5. Klapác - 42 pts (29+13)
6. Wimmer - 39 pts (27+12)
7. Suchý - 38 pts (24+14)
8. Golonka - 37 pts (17+20)
9. Cerný - 36 pts (24+12)
10. Lidický - 36 pts (15+21)
11. Hrbatý - 35 pts (21+14)
12. Kepák - 35 pts (17+18)
13. Cvach - 34 pts (23+11)
14. Hejma - 34 pts (17+17)
15. Sevcik - 32 pts (23+9)
16. Bavor - 32 pts (16+16)
17. Jirik - 31 pts (16+15)
18. Grandtner - 29 pts (18+11)
18. Jar.Nedved - 29 pts (18+11)
20. Kasták - 29 pts (16+13)

Suchy finished 7th in scoring and Pospisil did not make the top 20. And considering that Stadion Magazine called Suchy clearly the best hockey player of the season in 67/68 it seems likely that Suchy would have done a lot better than Pospisil in the voting that season. And Suchy probably even would have had a big chance of winning the award that year.

 

[Sturminator]

My issue with a comparison like this one (and it's something I meant to bring up before this round):

Why do we care about Golden Stick voting? Because it is a representative of what people who watched them play think.

Yet in retrospect, who do people who watched them play rank higher? Suchy. Every single list I've seen. Even Karel Gut, who feuded with Suchy, ranked him exactly one spot higher than Pospisil.

I do wonder if we are outsmarting ourselves by parsing Golden Hockey Stick voting so closely in this manner. That said, the work by you, VMBM, and DN38 certainly shows that Pospisil belongs in this group of players, not far behind Suchy, IMO.

Holistic "whole career" rankings are always up for debate because they include "baked in" judgments about controversial issues such as peak vs. career value, the importance of team success, the appropriate weighting of offensive vs. defensive value for defensemen, etc. Indeed, we could just as easily ask: what is the value of holistic ratings when we have granular, season-by-season data?

Spectacular players are regularly accorded disproportionate glory after the fact. How often do we see lists like this one, where a guy like LaFleur is ranked above a guy like Harvey? How many Flyers fans rate Tim Kerr over Bryan Propp? Suchy was a spectacular player par excellence. Pospisil was not. We only have reason to accept holistic judgments at face value if we agree with all of the assumptions which go into making them.

 

[Robert Gordon Orr]

I didn't know that this project was about the Non-NHL Europeans of the 1970s and 1980s only!
The lack of pre-1970s players is really starting to bug me.

Unfortunately the lack of interest (or knowledge?) in the pre 70s players have pushed many early legendary European hockey players out of any higher rankings (as expected). It is really a shame, but there are some quality discussions going on regarding the current players that we are focusing on, and that’s good.
Kudos to Theokritos and TheDevilMadeMe for putting this together, no small task for a project like this, focusing entirely on European players who played their entire (or bulk of it) careers outside of North America.

Krutov...The guy seems like the perfect example of a player who, discipline wise, was a product of a tight environment. Without Tikhonov there to hound him out of the comfort zone he became depressed and fell in love with fast food and the lazy life.

Krutov...Yes that is one way of looking at it. Another way is that perhaps Krutov simply was tired of working out after having spent his entire hockey career and most of his life under arguably the toughest training regime in sports history.

I agree with both of you here and I think his decline was a combination of what you guys wrote.
Juiced up or not, Krutov cracked the lineup of the powerful CSKA team when he was only 17 and was regarded as one of the greatest talents of his generation even before that. It’s not that he suddenly became a star at the age of 25.

Personally I (and others with me) believe that many of the old Soviet players from the 60 to the 80s were taking steroids in some capacity. But it is useless to point out individual players as we don’t know for sure. I do think the players were given stuff by the medical staff (not uncommon in other sports in the DDR and CCCP). Maybe they did not really know what they were getting, although they surely knew deep inside that they weren’t given only Vitamin-C.

Maybe our Swedish members can relate what old internationals like Håkan Södergren , Anders Hedberg and Ulf Nilsson thought about the old Soviets and how “clean” they believed them to be.

[MOD]

Of these players, I think Krutov and Kasatonov are ready to go. Both were more than competent members of arguably best unit of all time… Looking at the actual results on paper, they seem to be two best players in this voting.

Yes, there is a strong argument for both of them. Kasatonov really was in the shadow of Fetisov, but was very wellrounded no doubt. However, I think the competition from Petrov, Pospisil and Suchý makes this very close (once again).

Krutov…It seems basically that you lot are judging an entire career on what that player did in a debut season in the NHL during that players twillight years.

Touché, that’s the problem. Sadly a lot of people are judging Krutov’s entire career on what he did in the NHL.

The weakest players this round in my personal opinion (as a non-voter): (Ragulin, Nový and Larionov)

Yes, that seems to be the bottom three at the moment. But maybe someone will have a good case for Ragulin, Nový or Larionov.

overall, I can't help but think that Frantisek Pospisil is the greatest Czech defenseman of this generation.

I agree, he had many good qualities and yes, Suchý had that flair, peak value and could get the crowds out of their seats, but in the long run Pospisil is the quality guy.

In their respective peak years, I would definitely have Suchý out on the ice with one minute left of the game if my team was trailing by a goal, but at the same time, Pospisil is the guy that I would have on the ice if my team was up by a goal with a minute left on the clock.

Pospisil was like old German football (soccer) star Franz Beckenbauer, “Der Kaiser”, reliable, an excellent leader and someone who could motivate his players, qualities that you don’t find on a statistical sheet. To me it was virtually a dead heat between Vasiliev and Pospisil.

 

[DN28]

A scoring line player from the USSR should be expected to be in the top 10 in scoring at the WHCs and OGs very often. Honestly, raw scoring data from tournaments that include the likes of Poland and West Germany shouldn't be very meaningful.

Yakushev's case rests on how well he did against the good teams. Not saying Yakushev should necessarily be ahead of Petrov, just that I couldn't care less about who racks up more points in blowouts against terrible teams.

It certainly highlights consistency of elite performance and it is interesting way to look at certain players.

Petrov - 8x in top 10 scoring (WC, OG, CC) including 3x winning the scoring

Yakushev - 5x in top 10 scoring (WC, OG, CC) + 2x winning scoring in SS

Larionov - 4x in top 10 scoring (WC, OG, CC)

Novy - 4x in top 10 scoring (WC, OG, CC) including 1x winning the scoring

Krutov - 9x in top 10 scoring (WC, OG, CC) including 2x winning the scoring


and for a better picture I´ll include:

Martinec - 3x in top 10 scoring (WC, OG, CC) including 1x winning the scoring

Nedomansky - 7x in top 10 scoring (WC, OG, CC)

Michailov - 12x in top 10 scoring (WC, OG, CC) including 1x winning the scoring

Maltsev - 10x in top 10 scoring (WC, OG, CC) including 2x winning the scoring

 

[Thegreatwar]

I think that Krutov's prime should be taken at face value, since the evidence against him isn't that solid, and there being doubts about Soviet players in general.

 

[DN28]

Now is probably a good time to debate Pospisil vs. Suchy, so I'll get that started by re-posting something I wrote last year:


This argument is using "Golden Stick win shares" as the metric for comparison, and I am forced to fudge (generous to Suchy, I think) results for the 1967-68 season, in which both were beginning their peaks. Anyway, Suchy's peak is clearly higher by this metric, but not by an enormous margin, and Pospisil played at a high level for basically twice as long.

Also in Pospisil's favor is that he was longtime captain of the Czech national team, and his personal performance at that level seems to closely correlate with the success of the team. Pospisil was named to the WEC-A all-star team all three times the Czechs won the tournament in the 1970s.

It has been discussed in great details last voting already.
In sum, I agree with you. Looking at both careers in retrospective, Pospisil looks better and I have him above Suchy.

It´s interesting however, how different career paths they had while starting on similar grounds. Like I mentioned before, both were on that famous training camp of NT at the beginning of 1963-64 season as a cca 18yo juniors (along with young Nedomansky or Jiri Holik). But then Suchy took off and made NT in WC 1965, while Pospisil had to wait 3 seasons.

GS voting records were also brought up, Pospisil´s record is much better. But to be fair to Suchy, he would be a winner at least in 1968 (at least sport magazines considered him clearly best player at the time), and would probably finish high in those voting in 67, 66 too. (Like Batis already mentioned those stats you posted look wrong, especially Pospisil didn´t score that much points that early in his career)
I´ve made a claim last voting that Pospisil´s peak wasn´t that much behind Suchy though. Pospisil´s peak came a little later but still overlapped with Suchy´.

And it´s interesting how their careers turned out after their 1973-74 season. Pospisil went through crisis that year and looked to be done. He turned 30 after all, so it wasn´t surprising. But then he made his comeback - Kladno dynasty emerged and Pospisil returned to NT and as a captain led his team to success (WC 76, 77 + CC 76).
While Suchy was slightly behind Pospisil in GS voting that season (73-74), his last hurrah in NT wasn´t dissapointing - had the most points among d-men in his team and was 2nd most productive among d-men overall in that WC + he actually received few all-star votes, unlike Pospisil who got benched in his last game of the tournament.
But Suchy didn´t earn any other nomination, and Karel Gut certainly wasn´t shy of using veterans (return of Vlado Dzurilla to NT in 1976 is a prime example), if they were good enough. Pospisil prolonged his career and was still excellent European d-man when his career was about to end.

Both have been apparently very good two-way, complete d-men during their peak. Both have been number one d-man of their club dynasties and of the national team. Pospisil had longer career, tremendous leadership, better MVP voting, more "professional" attitude.
Suchy had better peak, got much more admired by observers, revolutionized the way how European defensemen played, got more all-star votes.

Looking at their careers as a whole, it´s not too much difficult to put Pospisil ahead. But it´s not wrong by any means to prefer Suchy and go with opinion that Suchy is widely considered the best Czech defenseman by general fans, former players, journalists... in the Czech Republic.

EDIT:
Some interesting votings:

JIŘÍ HOLEČEK
1. Dominik Hašek
2. Vladimír Martinec
3. Jan Suchý
4. Jaromír Jágr
5. Vladimír Zábrodský
6. Bohumil Modrý
7. Jaroslav Holík
8. Jiří Králík
9. František Pospíšil
10. Vlastimil Bubník

MILOSLAV JENŠÍK
(popular hockey historian who closely watched CS hockey from late 50s to this day)
1. Dominik Hašek
2. Jaromír Jágr
3. Jiří Holeček
4. Vladimír Zábrodský
5. Václav Nedomanský
6. Josef Maleček
7. Ivan Hlinka
8. Bohumil Modrý
9. Robert Reichel
10. Jiří Holík
---> no Suchy and Pospisil!

VLADIMÍR KOSTKA
(I described who this guy is here)
1. Dominik Hašek
2. Vladimír Martinec
3. Vladimír Zábrodský
4. Jiří Holík
5. Jaromír Jágr
6. František Pospíšil
7. Vlastimil Bubník
8. Ivan Hlinka
9. Milan Nový
10. Bohumil Modrý

KAREL GUT
1. Dominik Hašek
2. Jaromír Jágr
3. Vladimír Martinec
4. Vladimír Zábrodský
5. Josef Maleček
6. Vlastimil Bubník
7. Jan Suchý
8. František Pospíšil
9. Jiří Holík
10. Ivan Hlinka

JAROSLAV PITNER
1. Jaromír Jágr
2. Dominik Hašek
3. Vladimír Martinec
4. Jan Suchý
5. Jaroslav Holík
6. Jiří Holík
7. František Pospíšil
8. Jiří Holeček
9. Vlastimil Bubník
10. Vladimír Zábrodský

FRANTIŠEK POSPÍŠIL
1. Dominik Hašek
2. Jaromír Jágr
3. Vladimír Zábrodský
4. Josef Maleček
5. Jan Suchý
6. Vlastimil Bubník
7. Vladimír Martinec
8. Bohumil Modrý
9. Václav Nedomanský
10. František Tikal

Suchý didn´t cast a vote.

 

[Theokritos]

Some interesting votings:

If we focus on those voters who played with both Suchý and Pospíšil back in their heyday:

Jiří Holeček (G): Suchý 3rd, Pospíšil 9th
Josef Horešovský (D): Pospíšil 7th, Suchý 9th
Oldřich Machač (D): Pospíšil 10th, Suchý —
Ivan Hlinka (F): Suchý 3rd, Pospíšil —
Vladimír Martinec (F): Suchý 3rd, Pospíšil —
Josef Černý (F): Pospíšil 4th, Suchý —
Richard Farda (F): neither player in top 10
Josef Paleček (F): neither player in top 10

(Pospíšil's own ballot omitted because he's one of the players in question. Let me know in case you see somebody I have overlooked.)

Jaroslav Pitner (Coach): Suchý 4th, Pospíšil 7th
Karel Gut (Coach): Suchý 7th, Pospíšil 8th
VladimÃr Kostka (Coach): Pospíšil 6th, Suchý —

Result:
Suchý: 3th, 3th, 3th, 4th, 7th, 9th (37 points)
Pospíšil: 4th, 6th, 7th, 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th (26 points)

 

[Robert Gordon Orr]

While I was doing the table I noticed that Theokritos thought of the same thing. Well, I have included the votes for Suchý and Pospíšil from people who either played with or against them, or coaches and referees who saw them play, as well as some others (i.e. journalists).
So the numbers reflect if they got a top ten vote or not. (as the best Czechoslovakian player ever)

I did not include borderline cases like Jiří Hrdina who played as a senior against Suchý but not Pospíšil (he ranked Pospíšil 7th and Suchý 9th). I also did not include Miloš Říha who played with Suchý as a senior, but didn’t play vs Pospíšil (he ranked Suchý 2nd).

I don't know if this was of much help, but anyway...

table missing

 

[DN28]

If we focus on those voters who played with both Suchý and Pospíšil back in their heyday:
...
Vladimír Kostka (Coach): neither player in top 10

Kostka had Pospisil on 6th place.

 

[VMBM]

Alexander Yakushev

• Soviet leading scorer and widely regarded as best forward in the 1972 Summit Series vs NHL All-Stars
  [*]Soviet leading scorer and widely regarded as best forward in the 1974 Summit Series vs WHA All-Stars

Is this true? 1972 certainly, but 1974? Hmm.

Boris Kulagin named Kharlamov and Bill Harris named Maltsev (of all people), when asked about the best Soviet player in the series.

I'm not so sure about Yakushev being the best Soviet forward in the 1974 Series either. And the official stats of that series are quite corrupted too, although I can't tell right now whether this is a positive or negative thing in Yakushev's case.

Unfortunately the lack of interest (or knowledge?) in the pre 70s players have pushed many early legendary European hockey players out of any higher rankings (as expected). It is really a shame, but there are some quality discussions going on regarding the current players that we are focusing on, and that’s good.
Kudos to Theokritos and TheDevilMadeMe for putting this together, no small task for a project like this, focusing entirely on European players who played their entire (or bulk of it) careers outside of North America.

Heh, I'd think that in your view I underrated the pre-1970s players myself too... but yes, apparently when looking at the average voter here, I ranked them pretty high.

Yes, that seems to be the bottom three at the moment. But maybe someone will have a good case for Ragulin, Nový or Larionov.

I'll try to have some nice words/quotes about Ragulin by Monday. I agree that he is among the "bottom three" here, but people maybe do not quite appreciate what a legendary figure he was in international hockey, and his strength was something quite extraordinary.

 

[Theokritos]

Kostka had Pospisil on 6th place.

Thanks, it's fixed now.