It's not my intention to bring old stuff, but I wrote that the last time I took the plane and don't want to be wasted. Beware, I sound a little angry in this, which is pretty rare in the ATD!
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Wow, the hate for Krutov is quite astonishing, to the point where it becomes funny.
IF Krutov ever took performance enhancing drugs, some people made it look like it would of been the only reason why he was able to retrieve the puck in the corners from Patrice Brisebois.
Krutov, at the time of his selection, was by far the best offensive package remaining: not only was he a physical specimen, he also had a wicked shot, weither it was a slapshot or a wristshot, and a very precise one. He was also a clever playmaker. I have him as the 4th best winger of the 1980's.
Also, I find it quite humorous that people can claim on just how much steroids can affect a players performances, and make it a rule of thumb, like these effects are very well known and many studies has been done on hockey players. IF, and again I reiterate the IF as it his very important in this case, Krutov took performance enhancing drugs, we cannot quantify how much it affected his performances.
I'll admit something: I know next to nothing about steroids, but I feel some people are uninformed claims on the subject. IF Krutov took steroids, I find it rather disturbing that some of the users I respect the most around those boards think that arguably the brainiest and most offensively gifted left winger of his generation wouldn't be a top-500+ best player of All-Time. My feel of the situation is that IF Krutov took steroids, people are drastically downgrading his achievement, because of the moral issues of taking drugs, which should only be the reason for a GM to not select him at any point, and not making his career a mockery due to these speculative assumption.
Take for example Sprague Cleghorn. Never would he be able to play in today's NHL. Why a player like him (and others) dosn't get drastically knocked down, on the assumption that they tried to kill players on the ice (but again, who am I to judge that attemped murder is a bigger sin than speculative assumption of taking drugs?). I love Cleghorn BTW, it's to make a point that I use him as an example.
I rest my case. When we are talking about making assumption on most older players, we're making assumption on their style of play, and not drastically downgrading their career on hypothetical off-ice situation.
Now as Jarek pointed out earlier, you want to scratch some point off Krutov's resume for the fact that he was unable to adjust himself to the North American style of play, go ahead, and to a certain degree, I agree with those assessment. It's my main reason why I have Larionov over Krutov on my list and why Krutov is about #150 and not in the top-120. It's definitely debatable, and hopefully, I'll have time to make an honest assessment on this matter.
PS: I need to stress again that the above discussion is on the assumption, on non-factual stories that Krutov took steroids at one point during his career.
PS2: If you have moral issues about the behaviour of the Cleghorns, Bobby Hulls, Krutovs or the Patrick Roys, I will respect anyone deciding to skip on them and never selecting them. But please, leave the hearsay and the what-ifs outside the overall on-ice performances of a player (I understand that Hull and Roy are infamous for non-hockey related incident, but the point remain).
