HISTORICAL ISSUE: Who remembers Igor Larionov as a Vancouver Canuck?

[Eddy Punch Clock]

Say, what ever happened to poster Wetcoaster?

Once upon a time, before he came to HF, we were members of another Canuck site

(said site no longer exists).

Wettie and I scarcely ever agreed on anything, but hey I agree with THIS:

http://hfboards.mandatory.com/showthread.php?t=852165&page=8

Nice job Wettie!

For those interested in the Larionov story, from the archives of this very forum...

You talkin' about Canucks Central? I don't remember "Wettie" ever being there.... though I didn't join until 2000 and CC was up and running in 1996.

Just how old are you old chap?

 

[Fat Tony]

I remember thinking how we made out so much better than Calgary, getting 2/3 of the KLM line. It didn't work out so well. Larionov was mediocre, certainly not the player we were expecting.

Krutov was much maligned. Far more so than Larionov. You couldn't mention Krutov in Vancouver without some reference to hotdogs. In hindsight, I feel bad for the guy. It would be more accurate to say that he adjusted badly to live in Vancouver and was homesick.

Larionov eventually got better, but I think most fans outside of Vancouver will associate him more with the Redwings than with the Canucks when they recall his NHL career.

 

[NFITO]

I remember taking both Larionov and Krutov in my hockey pool the year they arrived from Russia.

My 1st round pick that year was Rob Brown

needless to say, I didn't finish too well in that pool

Always been a huge fan of Larionov.. classy, smart player, who found the time to talk to kids (myself at the time) about hockey after games when most players were rushing out of locker rooms and into their cars as fast as they could so they wouldn't have to talk to anyone. As a young fan who used to wait for players to get autographs and talk, the only 2 players that seem to always have time to chat with fans were Larionov and Linden.

 

[ChilliBilly]

ok been a fan for years ...

(oh i get to be the fan of the game in march, with all the hoopla that goes with it ... ticket holder since the start)

anyhow, larionov would have been in valuable to the canucks, but he did not want the Soviets/russians to get a penny, and they were due for a big payoff. he left voluntarily and agreed with the decision.

sad that westcoast is no longer here ... he could have done 20 pages on this crap.

larionov was the next door neighbour to a fellow employee, what i would give to have a one on one with him. read his book.

 

[Strangelove]

You talkin' about Canucks Central? I don't remember "Wettie" ever being there.... though I didn't join until 2000 and CC was up and running in 1996.

Just how old are you old chap?

Relax Eddy, I'm a time-traveler.

Yeah The Wetman was there.

There were some epic battles between he and fellow-lawyer UWSaint.

EPIC!

Anyway, I still say we woulda won the Cup in '94 if we still had The Professor....

 

[ChilliBilly]

Relax Eddy, I'm a time-traveler.

Yeah The Wetman was there.

There were some epic battles between he and fellow-lawyer UWSaint.

EPIC!

Anyway, I still say we woulda won the Cup in '94 if we still had The Professor....

agreed ... all things being equal

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

agreed ... all things being equal

probably no craven, which means we also have kron for the fourth line instead of antoski. not too shabby.

 

[David Bruce Banner]

Oh god... we thought we were going to be immediately successful with Krutov and Larionov after years of sucking, and were then all surprised and upset when they both struggled upon arrival. It was a HUGE adjustment for both of them, both culturally and hockey-wise. Larionov eventually figured it out, but Krutov never did.

In his first season here, Larionov looked old and small and weak. Seeing him line up against Messier and Otto was just depressing. Playing with Bure really helped him, but still, even at his best here, he was still a 2nd line center playing 1st line minutes.

The "Little Professor" that everyone knows and revers didn't turn up until he entered the perfect (Russian) storm situation in Detroit.

 

[galiano]

Very intelligent player, who apparently remembered everything about his on ice shifts.

IMO, he was respnsible for Bure's initial success....certainly helped Bure with his first year adjustement, at any rate, whch IIRC, was Larionov's last year as a Canuck. And his last year as a Canuck was his best year as a Canuck. But typcally with those days, something screwy went on between player and management.

He and Krutov were going to lead us to instant respectability. Not to be, of course. As mentioned elsewhere, Krutov showed up fat and out of shape and could not function independently of the Russian training system.

But Larionov was a very good, very heads up player. Classy guy who played a classy game.

Side note: Anatoli Tarasov was at that first training camp as well and I got to speak to him, through an interpreter, of course. He did not seem to have a particularly high opinion of the skill level in North American Hockey and felt the skill and skating level in NA could not match either European or Soviet hockey. I also remember he said that Larionov was an encyclopedia of hocky info.

Great post. Igor in his prime was one of the best players in the world. Great guy and a wonderful player. Totally wrong to consider him at all like Krutov who was sadly pathetic during his brief time in Vancouver. It was a sad day when Igor left the Canucks.

 

[Canuckz]

Krutov was not FAT!...proof! -

 

[Lard_Lad]

Krutov was not FAT!...proof! -

It's funny the cards were sponsored by Mohawk, given Vlad's fondness for gas station hot dogs.

 

[JuniorNelson]

Larionov was the smartest player Vancouver had ever seen. The Canucks never really had the imagination to use him to his potential. He often played with plumbers who watched his saucer passes hit their sticks without reacting.

One thing about Larionov that goes unsaid is that he would keep the puck much longer than anyone else. Shifty is understating it. It was strange to watch, Larionov would appear to be barely moving, he'd just watch the play until he saw a lane nobody else did and then execute a perfect pass. The first cross ice passes came as something of a shock to viewers of the era.

The Canucks began to appreciate this player and would have had a career asset if not for the transfer agreement, which the principled Russian found to be unbearable.

 

[LiveeviL]

Krutov was not FAT!...proof! -

After his NHL stint he went over here in Östersund, Sweden and played 4 seasons (Brunflo is just 10 kilometers away).

One really felt for him, he showed such a gratidtude that the small and economical weak organisation cared for him, saw to that he had a flat, paid the rent for him and fixed so that he had a car in the contract (iirc it was on the contract).

He was one of the real superstars when I grow up and he all of a sudden turned up in my home town and played hockey while topping it with being really humble and overall a nice guy - although hard to get to know according to the local fellow players.

The league was really bad and so was the team, but he just dominated by skating around and scoring at leisure, even while being far from his past game.

One guy who played with him then said that Krutov used to shout "Move, move, skate, skate!" he did and got the puck on the blade up forward just as it was magic.

 

[Eddy Punch Clock]

Larionov was the smartest player Vancouver had ever seen.

I always predicted that Larionov would go into coaching after his hockey career.

Guess I was the Mayor of Wrongville.

 

[ddawg1950]

Krutov was not FAT!...proof! -

No, not fat at all.

Just made a mistake by getting his hair cut in Russia.

Give him a SuperCuts and a suit from Men's Warehouse and...

Well, yah. Pretty tubby.


And Congrats to billvansattle for fan of the game in March.

Long time season ticket holders deserve recognition. Anybody that watched this team for more than four decades...that is supreme loyalty.

 

[kootenayfan]

I remember being very excited at the time when Larionov and Krutov joined the Canucks. Like others have said they had trouble adjusting to the North American system...and yes Krutov was terrible.

Larionov, given more time here, would have been an absolute beast.

And yes, I'm another of the...ahem..older crowd around here.

 

[Barney Gumble]

I remember being very excited at the time when Larionov and Krutov joined the Canucks. Like others have said they had trouble adjusting to the North American system...and yes Krutov was terrible.

Funny thing was, before they came over, I had always thought Krutov would've fit into the North American style better than Larionov (re: he had a well deserved nickname of "Tank").

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

The "Little Professor" that everyone knows and revers didn't turn up until he entered the perfect (Russian) storm situation in Detroit.

well to be fair, larionov was completely awesome in SJ when he, irbe, and makarov upset the wings in the playoffs. he was also credited by everyone from irbe to ozolinsh to a young ray whitney for showing that ragtag bunch the way.

 

[David Bruce Banner]

Funny thing was, before they came over, I had always thought Krutov would've fit into the North American style better than Larionov (re: he had a well deserved nickname of "Tank").

You weren't alone. Everyone was saying that, of all the Russians that came over then, his style was the best adapted for the NHL. In a perfect world, they were all probably right.

Messier may have been the biggest disappointment as a Canuck, but he's closely followed by Krutov... then Pederson.

 

[VanEric]

http://www.nytimes.com/1989/06/01/sports/sports-people-hockey-larionov-s-3-year-plan.html

SPORTS PEOPLE: HOCKEY; Larionov's 3-Year Plan
Published: June 01, 1989

Igor Larionov, the Soviet hockey player who last week was granted permission to join the Vancouver Canucks of the National Hockey League, said by telephone from Moscow that he wanted to play two or three professional seasons in Vancouver. He also said he had been assured by Pat Quinn, the Vancouver general manager, that the Canucks would try to reunite him with Sergei Makarov, a wing who played on the same line with Larionov for the Soviet national team, but whose rights are owned by the Calgary Flames.

''Sergei wants to come with me to Vancouver,'' Larionov said. ''He doesn't want to play in Calgary.''

Larionov said Makarov was not keen on joining the Flames, the Stanley Cup champions, because to him they are a team that can go only downhill. (AP)

From mid-season:
http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/boston/...EELY+WAS+HOPING+TO+TRICK+CANUCKS&pqatl=google

Canucks coach Bob McCammon isn't blaming his two Soviet players, Igor Larionov and Vladimir Krutov, for the agony of a losing season. "We added two world-class players," he said, "and we thought that would bolster our offense. It hasn't, but I certainly don't blame them. The expectations were that one of them Larionov would get a hundred points and the other would get 40 goals. We got one at the beginning of training camp and Krutov didn't come over until we were a week into camp." . . . McCammon sat out Krutov yesterday. "You didn't think I'd play him in this building against [Cam Neely] do you?" he asked.

 

[Eddy Punch Clock]

Larionov said Makarov was not keen on joining the Flames, the Stanley Cup champions, because to him they are a team that can go only downhill

Nostramakarovus.

 

[Yammer]

The argument against says that Larionov and Krutov both were not effective because of culture shock and adjustment to the NHL, with Larionov sticking it out and Krutov not, a victim of circumstance in large part. I, on the other side of the issue, wish to argue that Larionov was impressive in Vancouver, but I'm looking to see what others thought to help my case (it's a history of hockey discussion).

As I recall, Larionov avoided the criticism that was (rightfully) heaped on Krutov.

His best year here was only 65 points, but his arrival coincided, or not, with a steep improvement in team performance. I remember him as an intelligent playmaker who was strangely not deployed at the top centre. There was an interview with him where Larionov recalls that his player card said "defensive center" and he was baffled that that was how he was perceived.