How does Prime Sergei Makarov compare to Gretzky and Lemieux?

[TheMoreYouKnow]

How about CSKA decisively winning over mid-80s Oilers and other NHL clubs? Those teams trained and played together year round.

Well for one, those were exhibitions, but even ignoring that, CSKA had most of the Soviet team's best players. Of course, Dynamo had some very good players, but CSKA got the best. Meanwhile even in the mid 80s - the Oilers had how many guys who would be on a 'best of' Canada team? Gretzky, Messier, Coffey, maybe Anderson and Fuhr? If the Oilers also had had Lemieux, Hawerchuk, Bourque, Yzerman, Murphy and MacInnis the comparison might be apt, but nah it's perfectly possible that CSKA was better in relationship to NHL clubs than the Soviet Union was in relation to Canada. Non-Oilers added more to Team Canada than non-CSKA could add to the Soviet team.

The Soviet hockey system was built around the goal of putting the best Soviet Union team on the ice. I spent my childhood in the communist system, and played sports for a Dynamo club then, my dad did too and also was a coach, so I know how it worked. The Western teams never understood the seriousness and focus of the Soviet bloc teams because in the West it was more about making money and being famous.

 

[Sentinel]

Well for one, those were exhibitions, but even ignoring that, CSKA had most of the Soviet team's best players. Of course, Dynamo had some very good players, but CSKA got the best. Meanwhile even in the mid 80s - the Oilers had how many guys who would be on a 'best of' Canada team? Gretzky, Messier, Coffey, maybe Anderson and Fuhr? If the Oilers also had had Lemieux, Hawerchuk, Bourque, Yzerman, Murphy and MacInnis the comparison might be apt, but nah it's perfectly possible that CSKA was better in relationship to NHL clubs than the Soviet Union was in relation to Canada. Non-Oilers added more to Team Canada than non-CSKA could add to the Soviet team.

The Soviet hockey system was built around the goal of putting the best Soviet Union team on the ice. I spent my childhood in the communist system, and played sports for a Dynamo club then, my dad did too and also was a coach, so I know how it worked. The Western teams never understood the seriousness and focus of the Soviet bloc teams because in the West it was more about making money and being famous.

I know / am not challenging any of this. But when you're talking strictly "club vs. club" clearly CSKA was on par with the best of the NHL clubs. That's all I am saying.

A sidenote: late 70s Habs were just about as far away from the rest of the NHL as CSKA was from the Soviet Vysshaya Liga.

 

[The Panther]

I don't think there is any doubt in anyone's mind that Makarov had the skill/potential to be an NHL star at a very high level. If you see the guy play three games in his prime, that's quite evident. And scoring 86 points at age 31/32, on his first year in the NHL, with little power-play time, just confirms that he easily had the skill to be a 100+ point scorer in his prime, never mind the other non-offense aspects he brought.

What I'm kind of trying to say in my earlier posts, though, is that just because someone has great talent and skill in one environment doesn't mean they're going to be NHL superstars. I think saying that Makarov would score 150 points in the NHL -- though not entirely inconceivable -- is more like wishful thinking than a likely interpretation of reality.

It's basically impossible for any player to score 150 points in the NHL, in any era. The 1980s was a higher scoring period, and aside from Wayne Gretzky (at 184 points, average), NO PLAYER averaged even 140 points per season in the 1980s. And if we remove Gretzky and Lemieux from consideration, no player averaged more than 116 points per season in the 1980s. For perspective here, aside from Wayne/Mario, only four players in the 1980s averaged 100 points, and three of them barely. (Bossy averaged 116 points, Stastny averaged 106, Kurri 104, Savard 101, Coffey 95.) And those are the absolute top scoring guys.

Now, any player in the Bossy / Savard / Makarov elite talent level (there aren't many), playing in a "perfect storm" situation, could of course have a peak season where everything goes right and he ends up (like Nicholls in 1989) with 150 points, or whatever. But that would only be an extremely rare occurrence, happening once if a non-Wayne/Mario player is fortunate (I mean "fortunate" in the sense of ideal line-mates, right coach in the ideal system, no injury, etc.).

I also don't think exaggerating Makarov's point total potential is doing the guy any favors. Like most of those Red Army guys, he was trained to be a complete player, capable in all situations on the ice. I agree with the suggestion (earlier) that Makarov would have been at his best on a club in the 1980s like Montreal, where he'd have been in a system he could relate to more easily than, say, Calgary's or Los Angeles's.

 

[JackSlater]

You can take issue with that claim all you want, but it wasn't even my main point. Makarov played a different style from Canadian players. All the soviets did. They didn't play dump and chase, and they didn't defend in the "traditional" way. And when they played us their posession game was superior. We saw a mini version of that with the "Russian 5" in Detroit.

Makarov was the team's leading scorer but he still was an important part of the defensive fabric. He knew how to play in his own end.

So while he may not be "hands down" the best DF like I claimed earlier, he played a posession game that when properly executed was a superior way of defense, and largely misunderstood by North Americans. it's very much a lost art.

I know how the Soviets defended and I even alluded to that in a prior post. I'm thinking that pretty much everyone here is aware of how they played already. My issue is with your sizable exaggeration earlier.

 

[Minar]

Well who knows how much he might have scored of he didnt have to be on a line with Bob Errey...

 

[Peter25]

Gretzky and Mario were better but after that I'm struggling to name better forwards than Makarov.

Krutov at his best was as good as Makarov, some say that he was even better. Those include Anatoly Tarasov who said, I think it was in 1982, that "Krutov is the best player that we (the Soviets) ever produced".

Mike Bossy also thought highly of Krutov. I think it was in the 1984 Canada Cup where Bossy said that Krutov is the best player in the world (after Gretzky).

 

[Minar]

Better forwards than Makarov besides 66 and 99? Messier, Kurri, Andersen, Yzerman, Bossy?

 

[scott clam]

I know how the Soviets defended and I even alluded to that in a prior post. I'm thinking that pretty much everyone here is aware of how they played already. My issue is with your sizable exaggeration earlier.

Well I already admitted to exaggerating, do you want me to say I'm sorry?

 

[Peter25]

Better forwards than Makarov besides 66 and 99? Messier, Kurri, Andersen, Yzerman, Bossy?

None of them were better than Makarov and Krutov.

 

[Zine]

Well for one, those were exhibitions, but even ignoring that, CSKA had most of the Soviet team's best players. Of course, Dynamo had some very good players, but CSKA got the best. Meanwhile even in the mid 80s - the Oilers had how many guys who would be on a 'best of' Canada team? Gretzky, Messier, Coffey, maybe Anderson and Fuhr? If the Oilers also had had Lemieux, Hawerchuk, Bourque, Yzerman, Murphy and MacInnis the comparison might be apt, but nah it's perfectly possible that CSKA was better in relationship to NHL clubs than the Soviet Union was in relation to Canada. Non-Oilers added more to Team Canada than non-CSKA could add to the Soviet team.

The Soviet hockey system was built around the goal of putting the best Soviet Union team on the ice. I spent my childhood in the communist system, and played sports for a Dynamo club then, my dad did too and also was a coach, so I know how it worked. The Western teams never understood the seriousness and focus of the Soviet bloc teams because in the West it was more about making money and being famous.

Clubs like Soviet Wings and Dynamo Riga also played the NHL and didn't look out of place in the slightest.

More telling though...unlike the national team, our juniors (WJC) never spent any considerable time together; those guys played on numerous different teams from all over the country. Considering as such, would not our junior results deviate from our senior's if preparation and chemistry was the key to our senior team's success? This wasn't the case though. Junior results tended to mirror senior results of the era, not only against Canada but vs everybody else as well.

 

[Dennis Bonvie]

Better forwards than Makarov besides 66 and 99? Messier, Kurri, Andersen, Yzerman, Bossy?

No.

Of course there could be a case made for Messier. But I'd still say no.

 

[TheMoreYouKnow]

Clubs like Soviet Wings and Dynamo Riga also played the NHL and didn't look out of place in the slightest.

More telling though...unlike the national team, our juniors (WJC) never spent any considerable time together; those guys played on numerous different teams from all over the country. Considering as such, would not our junior results deviate from our senior's if preparation and chemistry was the key to our senior team's success? This wasn't the case though. Junior results tended to mirror senior results of the era, not only against Canada but vs everybody else as well.

CSKA did much better than any other Soviet team though by a wide margin. I quickly ran the numbers, so it's not double checked, but CSKA won 25 out of 35 games vs NHL teams up to 1991 i.e. domination. The remaining other Soviet teams won 32 out of 64 total games in the same time frame, so just an even .500.

But even Czech and Scandinavian teams played NHL teams well in the 70s and occasionally beat them. A number of Swiss Nationalliga teams have beaten NHL teams this century even. I'm not sure I'd run too far with those results given the exhibition nature and unclear motivational scenarios.

Regarding juniors - I don't know the hockey setup at the time well enough, but from my own experience I know the national sporting associations for each sport and the Olympic committees generally tried to make sure that the elite of every birth year were identified pretty quickly and filtered into specific clubs and also spend a certain amount of time together each year when playing tournaments for the youth teams from an early age on. I would wager they always had somewhat more familiarity with each other than the Canadian juniors who didn't even play in the same leagues.

 

[JackSlater]

Well I already admitted to exaggerating, do you want me to say I'm sorry?

I mainly don't understand why you keep replying and presenting commonly known things as if they are pertinent or new. I'm content to leave the exaggerations regarding Makarov where they're at but I'm also not looking for a tangent about something other than Makarov's defensive game in response.

Clubs like Soviet Wings and Dynamo Riga also played the NHL and didn't look out of place in the slightest.

More telling though...unlike the national team, our juniors (WJC) never spent any considerable time together; those guys played on numerous different teams from all over the country. Considering as such, would not our junior results deviate from our senior's if preparation and chemistry was the key to our senior team's success? This wasn't the case though. Junior results tended to mirror senior results of the era, not only against Canada but vs everybody else as well.

I don't think that those results show what you're claiming. At the WJC prior to 1982 USSR dominates but Canada was also sending the Memorial Cup champion with a few ringers. From 1982, when Canada first sent actual national junior teams, until USSR's last team in 1991 Canada won 5 of the 10 tournaments, USSR won 4, and both teams were disqualified in the other tournament, though Canada was in a position to potentially win gold and USSR was not. That's five times Canada finished ahead of USSR, four times USSR finished ahead of Canada, and one time when officially nothing happened but unofficially Canada finished ahead. At the World championships over the same span Canada won 0 tournaments, USSR (Russia in 1991) won 5 of the 8 tournament and finished ahead of Canada in 6 out of 8 tournaments.

Small edge to Canada once it started sending an actual national junior team, but there is another factor - Canada always missed players due to the NHL, while as far as I know (and I'm quite willing to be corrected if I'm wrong) USSR was sending all of its best junior players each year provided they were healthy. No one can guarantee what would have happened if both sides had played with their best, but there were times when Canada was missing 15+ players due to the NHL and still finishing near USSR or even ahead. To me the WJC results indicate that chemistry likely was a positive factor for Soviet teams, which makes intuitive sense to begin with.

 

[Overrated]

How guys like Trottier, Dionne, and Hawerchuk were doing against Makarov in small-sample tournaments or one-off games is hardly an intelligent way of guessing Makarov's NHL potential for scoring, anymore than the fact that Makarov (on the NHL's highest-scoring team) was out-scored by Pat Verbeek is an intelligent way of concluding his scoring potential.

To state the obvious: Small sample-sizes are too small to draw conclusions from. An NHL season is long and grinding, and not like a weekend tournament. Some athletes are more disposed to that kind of system, some are not.

Then, in international tournaments, players like Hawerchuk or Trottier were not playing the same role they were playing on their respective NHL teams. Hawerchuk was on an island in Winnipeg, while Trottier was his team's top-center and ate the big PP minutes, etc. None of those things applied when they played in international tournaments against the USSR. Makarov was his team's big scoring winger, who got the most ice-time of forwards and whose designated job it was to score. So, there's no point in making the scoring comparison you're suggesting.

Third, 150 points at the NHL level is really, really hard to achieve and basically never happens. Between 1971-72 and 1986-87 (sixteen years), one guy did it, and that guy was the greatest offensive player of all time.

Peter Stastny left for the NHL when he was like 24. He had plenty of his prime in Europe and was clearly outshined by Makarov. Of course all would depend on whether Makarov could play his "European" style game like Stastny could (meaning having other Europeans as his linesmen). Those 3 seasons (81/82 82/83 83/84) P.Stastny pretty much averaged 130 points per 80 games.

Another piece of evidence is that when you compare Peter Stastny to other Czechoslovak forwards in the CSSR he only stood out compared to his generation. Did he stand out next to Golonka, Nedomansky, Martinec or even Reichel? I don't think so..

On the other hand Makarov outscored everybody in the Soviet league's history and they didn't even count secondary assists which would definitely boost his assists even further and more so than to the majority of the people on this list as he was even more of a playmaker as he was a goalscorer.

(only ran numbers since 70/71 since most assists period seems to be missing from the 60s period)

You also mentioned something about Pat Verbeek outscoring Makarov in what I presume was a single game? The guy also played plenty of the World Championships and never did particularly well. Hawerchuk and Dionne played several WCs and I am pretty sure they were getting top minutes since these teams never had the high depth of talent so they made sure these guys would get utilized and again never did nearly as well as Makarov.

Even though the average Soviet player played significantly less games than an average Canadian player would did really apply for the top Soviets who played for the national team? That was about extra 150 games in that 10 year period. Some of the years the Soviet league would run the Soviet Cup tournament as well. CSKA would also play in an European style Cup (against teams from other countries) which amounted to about 6 games every year for the entire period that Makarov played. Of course then you had the superseries and many other exhibition games. Pretty sure if we counted it all up it would still amount to less than an average NHLer but it would be very close to it.

So this idea that Makarov could not possibly reach 150 when Stastny reached 139 seems quite ridiculous to me. People seriously underrate Makarov, in a different thread I read people picked Kharlamov over him when they weren't even close.

 

[Albatros]

But even Czech and Scandinavian teams played NHL teams well in the 70s and occasionally beat them. A number of Swiss Nationalliga teams have beaten NHL teams this century even. I'm not sure I'd run too far with those results given the exhibition nature and unclear motivational scenarios.

Old post, but regarding September exhibition games in Switzerland, I agree. When it comes to the Cold War games against the Soviets on home ice I don't think there's any need to talk of unclear motivation, it mattered.

 

[Zine]

I mainly don't understand why you keep replying and presenting commonly known things as if they are pertinent or new. I'm content to leave the exaggerations regarding Makarov where they're at but I'm also not looking for a tangent about something other than Makarov's defensive game in response.



I don't think that those results show what you're claiming. At the WJC prior to 1982 USSR dominates but Canada was also sending the Memorial Cup champion with a few ringers. From 1982, when Canada first sent actual national junior teams, until USSR's last team in 1991 Canada won 5 of the 10 tournaments, USSR won 4, and both teams were disqualified in the other tournament, though Canada was in a position to potentially win gold and USSR was not. That's five times Canada finished ahead of USSR, four times USSR finished ahead of Canada, and one time when officially nothing happened but unofficially Canada finished ahead. At the World championships over the same span Canada won 0 tournaments, USSR (Russia in 1991) won 5 of the 8 tournament and finished ahead of Canada in 6 out of 8 tournaments.

Small edge to Canada once it started sending an actual national junior team, but there is another factor - Canada always missed players due to the NHL, while as far as I know (and I'm quite willing to be corrected if I'm wrong) USSR was sending all of its best junior players each year provided they were healthy. No one can guarantee what would have happened if both sides had played with their best, but there were times when Canada was missing 15+ players due to the NHL and still finishing near USSR or even ahead. To me the WJC results indicate that chemistry likely was a positive factor for Soviet teams, which makes intuitive sense to begin with.

Right, like I said, by and large the junior results mirrored the best v best senior results against Canada. Both were neck-and-neck close. But, more importantly and to the point, Canada wasn't the only opponent.
The Soviet juniors were just as dominat as the seniors when pitted against CZE, SWE, FIN, USA, etc. How can this be explained considering the juniors didn't have the 'prep time, 'chemistry', the seniors did, nor were they 'hothoused' in Moscow?
Surely if chemistry played a significant factor in Soviet success, you'd see a giant discrepancy between the junior and senior teams - across the board vs everybody. But this wasn't the case. Junior tournaments typically mirrored senior results. USSR fighting it out against Canada for supremacy.

 

[JackSlater]

Right, like I said, by and large the junior results mirrored the best v best senior results against Canada. Both were neck-and-neck close. But, more importantly and to the point, Canada wasn't the only opponent.
The Soviet juniors were just as dominat as the seniors when pitted against CZE, SWE, FIN, USA, etc. How can this be explained considering the juniors didn't have the 'prep time, 'chemistry', the seniors did, nor were they 'hothoused' in Moscow?
Surely if chemistry played a significant factor in Soviet success, you'd see a giant discrepancy between the junior and senior teams - across the board vs everybody. But this wasn't the case. Junior tournaments typically mirrored senior results. USSR fighting it out against Canada for supremacy.

I have no idea why you quoted me from 2020 just to repeat what you said before and ignore what I said in the post that you quoted. In the period I discussed USSR totally dominated Canada at the IIHF WC while Canada was slightly better than USSR at the WJC despite regularly missing a significant amount of players. Things were very tight at the best on best level in the two relevant tournaments (1984 and 1987) over that span and could have gone either way.

If your point is to say that USSR did not have noteworthy chemistry by putting the word in quotation marks or that having built in chemistry among many of the best players was not advantageous then that's simply a very odd stance to take.

As for the thread, as I'm sure I said whenever I posted before Makarov is not Gretzky or Lemieux but he was an all time great.

 

[The Panther]

Peter Stastny left for the NHL when he was like 24. He had plenty of his prime in Europe and was clearly outshined by Makarov.

I would like to know more about this and about Czech vs. Soviet games in the late 70s and early 80s. Where can I see some stats or read about it?

You also mentioned something about Pat Verbeek outscoring Makarov in what I presume was a single game?

Actually, the 1989-90 NHL season.

So this idea that Makarov could not possibly reach 150 when Stastny reached 139 seems quite ridiculous to me.

I think what I said earlier in this thread (it was like, a year ago or something) is that I certainly think Makarov could have reached 150 points once in a 'perfect-storm' type of situation. Like, if he'd played in the NHL at his physical prime, which coincided with a very high-scoring period, and if he'd been on the right team, with the right coach / line-mates, it could happen. That is, he had the talent. But of course, having the talent isn't often matched by being in the right situation.

You are probably right that P. Stastny's situation was fairly ideal: high-scoring team, brothers come with him, French-community (not English dominant) of people more open to Europeans, small-market with lower expectations, etc.

I think what I was objecting to (long time ago) was someone's statement that Makarov would have averaged 150 points a year in the NHL.

 

[Batis]

I would like to know more about this and about Czech vs. Soviet games in the late 70s and early 80s. Where can I see some stats or read about it?

Here is a comparison of Makarovs and Stastnys careers in Europe up until the age of 24.

Good idea. Batis has already compared their European careers up until 1980 when Šťastný left for the NHL. But to make the comparison fairer, I'll do the same for both players' careers up to their 24th birthday (Šťastný left Czechoslovakia just one months before turning 24).

Peter Šťastný before turning 24:
Ranked among Czechoslovak players: 1st, 6th, 12th, 12th, 15th.
Ranked among European players: 8th.
World Championship awards: none.

With that record under his belt, Šťastný came to the NHL and immediately proved to be one of the top scorers in the league (#6 in his rookie season, top 3 in the following seasons).

Sergey Makarov before turning 24:
Ranked among Soviet players: 1st, 2nd, 4th, 4th, 9th.
Ranked among European players: 1st, 4th, 4t, 6th.
World Championship awards: Best Forward 1979, All-star team 1979 and 1981 and 1982.

Note that in Šťastný's best season when he was voted Player of the Year in Czechoslovakia he was also voted 8th among European players overall. In the very same season (1979-1980), Makarov was voted Player of the Year in the USSR and was also voted 1st among all European players. That should give you a perspective on what being voted #1 in Czechoslovakia and #1 in the USSR are roughly worth when you compare them.

It's obvious that Makarov's pre-24 record is much more impressive than Šťastný's pre-24 record. If the latter player still turned out to be a top-6 scorer in the NHL right away and a top-3 scorer after a season of adjustment, what do we realistically have to assume about the former, clearly superior player?

When it comes to stats this is how Makarov and Stastny compares in head to head competition on the international stage in major and minor tournaments, the European Cup and Super Series.

USSR-CSSR 4-6 World Championship 1978: Stastny 1 g, 1 a - Makarov -
USSR-CSSR 3-1 World Championship 1978: Stastny - - Makarov -
USSR-CSSR 3-3 Izvestia Trophy 78/79: Stastny 1 g - Makarov 1 g
USSR-CSSR 11-1 World Championship 1979: Stastny - - Makarov 3 g, 1 a
USSR-CSSR 6-1 World Championship 1979: Stastny - - Makarov 1 g
USSR-CSSR 6-4 Rude Pravo Cup 79/80: Stastny 1 g - Makarov 1 g
USSR-CSSR 3-2 Izvestia Trophy 79/80: Stastny - - Makarov 1 a
USSR-CSSR 2-1 Sweden Cup 79/80: Stastny - - Makarov -
CSKA Moscow-Slovan Bratislava 11-1 European Cup 79/80: Stastny - - Makarov 2 g, 2 a
USSR-Canada 6-3 Canada Cup 1984: Stastny - - Makarov 1 g
USSR-Canada 2-3 Canada Cup 1984: Stastny - - Makarov 1 g
CSKA Moscow-Quebec Nordiques 1-5 Super Series 85/86: Stastny 2 a - Makarov 1 g
CSKA Moscow-Quebec Nordiques 5-5 Super Series 88/89: Stastny 2 a - Makarov 1 g
Total: Stastny 13 gp, 3 g, 5 a, 8 pts - Makarov 13 gp, 12 g, 4 a, 16 pts

 

[Overrated]

I would like to know more about this and about Czech vs. Soviet games in the late 70s and early 80s. Where can I see some stats or read about it?

I get most of my numbers from wikipedia and eliteprospects/quanthockey. I also use chidlovski's websites for data regarding Soviet players. Sometimes the WC information is lacking on English wiki I click on the Czech or sometimes even the German page which have more information. You can auto translate the page on chrome.

For example here: Mistrovství světa v ledním hokeji 1979 – Wikipedie

You will find all the goals for every game. Unfortunately assists are harder to find. Fortunately there are a lot of these games on youtube. This channel hosts a lot of videos of old games: https://www.youtube.com/user/FrankTheTruth/videos
This channel hosts some too https://www.youtube.com/user/MrVasilenkoK
This channel hosts some interesting videos too: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQEDCrpWo-oZuHygfse7nJw

It's all googling at the end of the day.

Actually, the 1989-90 NHL season.

And 90-91 and also 92-93 and 93-94. Should this be looked at at face value though? This is the full line's performance in 89-90 which went toe to toe with the best Canadians in the CC87.

Pretty terrible to say the least.

I think what I said earlier in this thread (it was like, a year ago or something) is that I certainly think Makarov could have reached 150 points once in a 'perfect-storm' type of situation. Like, if he'd played in the NHL at his physical prime, which coincided with a very high-scoring period, and if he'd been on the right team, with the right coach / line-mates, it could happen. That is, he had the talent. But of course, having the talent isn't often matched by being in the right situation.

You are probably right that P. Stastny's situation was fairly ideal: high-scoring team, brothers come with him, French-community (not English dominant) of people more open to Europeans, small-market with lower expectations, etc.

I think what I was objecting to (long time ago) was someone's statement that Makarov would have averaged 150 points a year in the NHL.

I agree but isn't it usually the case though? Gretzky too was lucky to have the team he had. There is a reason Lemieux's mid to late 20s were better than his early 20s. There also is a reason why Makarov did much better than all of his old linsemen. He had the best team out of them.

Also the styles utilized by the two hockey continents back then were very different. When Detroit tried the Russian 5 old Larionov and Fetisov all of a sudden had their best year in their NHL careers despite being mid and late 30s respectively. That is why I think Makarov's 80 points tell very little about his early 80s NHL potential.

I do agree that even then some guys would probably not adjust too well. A good example is Anton Stastny who seemed only a tiny bit worse than Peter Stastny in offensive numbers in the last two years prior to his defection whereas in Canada he did much worse. He still averaged more than a PPG in his prime though. Now compare that to Novy who, though post prime, did quite poorly in the NHL. I do blame the fact that someone like him was probably very dependent on what was the European style back then. I could be wrong though. It's interesting to see that the oldest brother Marian, despite being the shortest out of the three and despite the fact he didn't play a single hockey game for a full year before his defection still managed a TOP15 PPG in the first two years in the NHL when he was 28-29 and 29-30 respectively:

Not sure exactly why Anton wasn't able to deliver. I have never seen their games they played for the Nordiques so I have no idea. Peter never dominated in the CSSR though. When I looked up his league stats and only filtered for the years he was in prime (so no teen years) he still was only the 5th highest scoring player in the league in terms of PPG (and he already played with his brothers back then):

When I filter for the Soviet league numbers during Makarov's prime which lasted to about 85/86 he absolutely dominates everyone in the Soviet league:

None of these guys Kurri, Stastny or Nilsson were as good as Makarov that is for sure.

 

[Batis]

You will find all the goals for every game. Unfortunately assists are harder to find.

This page is a very good source when it comes to boxscores from international hockey so if you have problems finding the assist numbers from a certain game you will likely be able to find it here. Форум хоккейных статистиков им. Виктора Малеванного - Главная страница

 

[Overrated]

This page is a very good source when it comes to boxscores from international hockey so if you have problems finding the assist numbers from a certain game you will likely be able to find it here. Форум хоккейных статистиков им. Виктора Малеванного - Главная страница

Amazing. Looks like there are even goal numbers for each league game. Could be interesting to see who performed the best during the most important matches against other Moscow teams. Also numbers for the Soviet Cups. I'd love to see a compilation of those.

 

[Theokritos]

Amazing. Looks like there are even goal numbers for each league game. Could be interesting to see who performed the best during the most important matches against other Moscow teams. Also numbers for the Soviet Cups. I'd love to see a compilation of those.

It's a great site. It was the main source for my 1965-1966 Soviet League thread (which was partially destroyed in the server migration).