VMBM
And it didn't even bring me down
I am basing my opinion on my viewings of him in several tournaments and the NHL tours. Tretiak just looked better positionally, more consistent, more dominant.
Granted, this probably had a bit to do with the overall evolution in goaltending - there was a rapid improvement in goaltenders throughout the 80s. I suspect that Tretiak was instrumental in ushering new techniques.
He seemed athletic and inconsistent to me throughout the 70s, and a jedi master in the 80s. So smooth and collected.
And it's not just the Canada cup and Olympics talking. Tretiak's overall body of work in the 80s is stellar. '81-'84 in particular.
Don't want to split hairs too much, as I think that what you say about his consistency might be true, but if we start from 1981...
From what I've seen, he was pretty good in the 1981 WC and okay in the 1982 WC, but not much more. Other than those, I can agree with the Star Wars analogy . But I'd still claim that generally, Team USSR was at their strongest in the early Eighties and USSR would've probably won all of those early 1980s tournaments even without him.