NHL vs. KHL? (Other European leagues)?

abo9

Registered User
Jun 25, 2017
9,082
7,177
It is the basic game philosophy rather than the rink. And some history.

NA hockey was always more physical and about shooting.

I will take soviet/russian hockey as an example as it represents the schism of styles most obvious. First of all for the history of sovet hockey. It came into being rather late, after WW2. At the time Czechs and Slovaks united in one country back then have already played it for quite some time. In the SU bandy(or russian hockey(sic!) as it is also called) was played. Thus the first soviet hockey players came mostly from bandy(and some from football). And the hockey basics were taken from Czechoslovakia. Adds up. Bandy and football both emphasize passing and speed and there is no body checking allowed. So first soviet players were no foreigners to skating. Also there is no changes in bandy, so endurance was probably way above of the same time NA hockey players. Bandy is played on a huge surface by hockey standards. Bandy is all about smart passing AND swift skating. Czeckoslovakian hockey was too always about smart (defensive) systems and fast paced couterattacks.

The result is the still remaining brand of russian hockey. Russians are tradtionally taught more about passing and creating plays rather than practicing shots. On the average Russians aren't great shooters. Training emphasizes endurance. Up to this day. Just ask the NA players from the KHL about the pre-season routines. Just as in bandy Russians would try to create a situation on the ice for the shooter to have a clean shot rather than pepper the net with shots from every angle. Grinding it out in front of the crease and quick shots(on rebounds) are also not exactly strenghts of russian hockey. Amazingly there is also that parallel to bandy. There is not much in front of the crease play in bandy and a few rebounds.

Taking that into consideration in the SU the great philosophy was always to outplay the opponent by passing. The puck is always faster than the player. You'd still hear that often in Russia. In order to do so players needed to buy into that game of cohesion where all 5 skaters would just "feel" where the others are and will be. Passing wasn't considered a tool to bring the puck up the ice. Lateral passes, backpassing were all to create space and openings. Paired with great skating and stamina that allowed soviet teams to skate circles around the opposition. Every strength is a weakness though. I remember since I was a child guys talking about our teams creating five scoring chances per minute, but not scoring. Remember? Shooting and rebounds.

The great soviet coaches like Chernyshov, Tarasov and Tikhonov perfected that style. The soviet teams were basically amazing tic-tac-toe machines. Puck posession, patience and creative passing would lead to odd man rushes and breakaways all the time.

And rink size did not matter that much as the Russian 5 in Detroit would demonstrate. Regrettably one other weakness of this brand of hockey is you actually need 5 guys who buy into that system, can think the game that way. In the NA system players are way more interchangeable. That is btw why there is still far less lines shuffling in Russia. And the whole idea of having offensive 3-man lines and D-pairings that would play with different lines is a NA thing. Soviet hockey would demand five-man units so the players would understand eachother blind on the ice. In a way this concept is very modern as hockey drifts towards a faster game with all five skaters involved in all three zones.

That said with the level of hockey development in Russia deteriorating and the globalization of the game many of the issues mentioned are a thing of the past. You need a certain level of skill and training to implement that kind of a game. That most russian teams don't have, so more and more they revert to more standardized schemes that can live of hard workers with worse skill.

The last time I saw something very similar to the soviet hockey was the Red Army(MHL) unit in the junior NT with Gusev - Grigorenko - Kucherov up front. Obviously courtesy of the remaining tradition within the CSKA school. Sad but true. That brand of hockey is gone and is not coming back. It was a privilege to watch it.


Wow that's very cool to read! Althought it makes me wonder... as when my dad was teaching us how to play to me and my brother he would say stuff like "The puck is always faster than the player." and emphasize skating over shooting and stickhandling techniques (he argued that it would come naturally with playing and that if you can skate around other players 80% of the job is done). He also liked when players passed back to the defensmen to create space like you outline, but when he was coaching and had less skilled teams on hand he would play the "NA" style of dumping the puck and shooting from every angle. There's something to learn from each style of play!

though I'm 22 so these ideas probably travelled to NA already when I was 8 or 9 (my dad is completely Canadian not Russian haha).
 

SoundAndFury

Registered User
May 28, 2012
11,309
5,283
Tell that to the Red Stars boss....I survived 1.3 seasons.

Got taken out by hookers & Saki though.

So you are implying you are Brett Bellmare who happens to be an HFBoards poster Leaf fan, who posted 600 times within a year an account was created, who doesn't know his team name correctly, who writes "boss" instead of just naming name of whoever you have in mind, who doesn't use plural even though Kunlun's "boss" changed after each season, who doesn't know how sake is spelled or the fact that it's a very uncommon drink in China.

That is all extremely believable.
 
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