Nightmare over! The same book, different chapter. Horrible goaltending, defense that is even worse! Dmitriy Kalinin may have been the worst defenseman in the entire tournament, although he had a lot of competition from Atyushov, Yemelin, Kulikov, etc. There is no excuse for Bykov not pulling Barulin out of the game after the 3rd goal, because he completely fell apart (no confidence at all) after that. The offense seemed to play better today than throughout the rest of the tournament, but their efforts were futile because of the flood of pucks into the Russian net.
This will no doubt be Bykov-Zakharkin's final game. They did a horrible job, and deserve to be fired. But I have to be a little saddened by Bykov's failure, because I had high hopes for him after 2008 and 2009. There are some huge problems for the next coach to solve, and what is difficult to foresee is whether there is enough talent available to win these tournaments. I couldn't help but notice how thoroughly the Russians were outplayed in the basic elements of the game - skating, puckhandling, passing, scoring. Sweden, the Czechs and Finland all seemed to have better players than we did.
How to retool? The ZZM line produced almost nothing, and they are not getting any younger. Will Kovalchuk and Ovechkin come back next year if their NHL teams are eliminated? After the frustration of the past two years, who could blame them for declining an invitation? There are a few good prospects in the pipeline, like Tarasenko and Kuznetsov, but will they mature fast enough to make a difference in the near future? Are there any decent defensemen who are in the pipeline who could reverse the deplorable level of play we saw in this tournament? Are there any goaltenders who could step in and win games instead of blow them?
One stopgap solution: stop allowing the KHL to be used as a training ground for other national teams. Look at the number of KHL players who were important members of their teams in this tournament. The Finnish goalie who stoned our shooters is a KHL player. Look at Jagr, Marek, Aaoltennen, etc. If they were not playing in the KHL, where the level of competition is fairly high, they would be back in their home leagues (even Jagr might not make it back to the NHL). There should be a strict limit on the number of foreign players in the league so that Russian prospects have more job opportunities and more opportunities to develop. Forget trying to expand the league to other countries in Europe - nobody is interested! Start taking more comprehensive and serious efforts to upgrade youth hockey, and follow through with the commitment. I see the Swedish, Finnish, and Czech teams getting better and better, and there is a danger that Russia could be left behind. End of rant!
A lot of young players played well too, Pavelec is an excellent goaltender and shows much promise as our future no.1. Voracek and Frolik also played well. I'm proud of our guys because they gave me hope that we can still play some beautiful hockey (like our 5th goal today) and that there are still some young players with good potential for the future (albeit perhaps not as many as we'd like). Also great work by the coach for putting together such a good team.
