"Russia`s 2014 Olympics Roster"

[Raptor1990]

Will Zinetula Bilyaletdinov finally choose some young talented and highly motivated players like Kuznetsov, Tarasenko, Yakupov, Grigorenko, Lazarev, Nikolishin, Kucherov, Nichushkin and many others or the same players like from IIHF WC 2013 ?

He said it good hockey is team sport and its great difference if you have young players who can skate more agile and perhaps faster then Fedorov ? Ok yes he had a lot more experience than 20 year old but modern hockey is not about it at all...

Russian style of hockey stopped somewhere in the 90s now...
Its no longer positional game...

By the way who beat Russia in http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fNGgLBx-oK0 ?

Click to read more...

 

[BalticWarrior]

Will Zinetula Bilyaletdinov finally choose some young talented and highly motivated players like Kuznetsov, Tarasenko, Yakupov, Grigorenko, Lazarev, Nikolishin, Kucherov, Nichushkin and many others or the same players like from IIHF WC 2013 ?

He said it good hockey is team sport and its great difference if you have young players who can skate more agile and perhaps faster then Fedorov ? Ok yes he had a lot more experience than 20 year old but modern hockey is not about it at all...

Russian style of hockey stopped somewhere in the 90s now...
Its no longer positional game...

By the way who beat Russia in http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fNGgLBx-oK0 ?

From what i have seen from my Latvian perspective,no. His top 6 is already built,hes noww just look for a handful 3d and 4th liners.

 

[Caser]

Don't know what is this thread about, about the idea that unexperienced 17 year old boys like Lazarev and Nikolishin can play at Olympics level?? Well then, lets see the whole list:

Lazarev, Nikolishin - 17 year old boys with 0 senior hockey experience
Kucherov, Grigorenko - had played less then 30 senior hockey games at the moment, didn't look great yet
Yakupov, Nichushkin - 1-st season out of junior hockey, still very inconsistent
Kuznetsov - can make it, but have to make a rather big step forward in terms of maturity - USA 4-th goal says it all
Tarasenko - if he plays like he did before the concussion then I think he can make it to Sochi

And yeah, why is Fedorov picked as a comparision? For some reasons I kind of doubt that he is on the roster candidate list at the moment

 

[Raptor1990]

Don't know what is this thread about, about the idea that unexperienced 17 year old boys like Lazarev and Nikolishin can play at Olympics level?? Well then, lets see the whole list:

Lazarev, Nikolishin - 17 year old boys with 0 senior hockey experience
Kucherov, Grigorenko - had played less then 30 senior hockey games at the moment, didn't look great yet
Yakupov, Nichushkin - 1-st season out of junior hockey, still very inconsistent
Kuznetsov - can make it, but have to make a rather big step forward in terms of maturity - USA 4-th goal says it all
Tarasenko - if he plays like he did before the concussion then I think he can make it to Sochi

And yeah, why is Fedorov picked as a comparision? For some reasons I kind of doubt that he is on the roster candidate list at the moment

Does age play role in team sport ? What happened in 1980 ?
Grigorenko, Slepyshev, Filatov and Kucherov can perfectly replace Petrov, Anisimov or even Loktionov they showed absolutely nothing...

Yakupov, Nichushkin are mix between Malkin/Kovalchuk

Yes, Kuznetsov caused a goal... Same like Tyutin... And he plays in "NHL" so thats ok.

Fedorov was a typical example what happened to Russian "team" on Vancouver 2010 against Canada. He was over-skated, overplayed and owned. Was not even a shadow of him in 2002 Salt Lake, you know why ?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q0GkG5mc0jE

 

[Caser]

Does age play role in team sport ?

It does actually because of:
1. experience and mental development
2. physical development

For example, just compare 20 year old and 30 year old "versions" of Pavel Datsyuk (or if you don't like him, you can take any other high class player and do this comparision)

What happened in 1980 ?

Soviet team that had an average age of about 24 years lost to team USA that had an average age of about 22 years, not sure that there is a big difference in terms of age...by the way, team Canada average age in Vancouver was about 27.

Grigorenko, Slepyshev, Filatov and Kucherov can perfectly replace Petrov, Anisimov or even Loktionov they showed absolutely nothing...

Grigorenko showed absolutely nothing in Buffalo (I liked his play very much on WJC, but unfortunately currently there are worries about his transition from junior hockey); Kucherov is progressing, but is closer to Syracuse than to Tampa; Filatov is only a month younger than Petrov, but is worse in defensive and physical play (and I'm not even mentoning his reputation); Slepyshev showed nothing at WJC, haven't got breakthrough season in KHL, why him and not, for example, Kosov?

Yakupov, Nichushkin are mix between Malkin/Kovalchuk

Actually it's hard to compare at this moment, but talking about the age, Kovalchuk didn't play very good for Russia NT until 2008 (he was 25 at that time)

Same like Tyutin... And he plays in "NHL" so thats ok.

Tyutin is there only because Russia have major problems wuth defenders... by the way, why there are no young defenders on your list, only forwards?

Fedorov was a typical example what happened to Russian "team" on Vancouver 2010 against Canada. He was over-skated, overplayed and owned.

Fedorov wasn't the worst player there: if we talking about "owned", then this is the right word to describe Ovechkin-Malkin-Semin line, I guess they also were too old

So, summary: you think that Russia should drop Datsyuk and Kovalchuk as they are too old and replace them with Grigorenko and Yakupov/Slepyshev, right?

 

[Raptor1990]

It does actually because of:

So, summary: you think that Russia should drop Datsyuk and Kovalchuk as they are too old and replace them with Grigorenko and Yakupov/Slepyshev, right?

No, no, no let be Kovalchuk, Datsyuk, Malkin and Ovechkin and exchange the rest of the team with young players and no more Zaripov, Mozjakin, Kovalev and Morozov also. I hope even no Maxim Sokolov as a 1st goalie...

 

[Caser]

Actually it seems that you are forgetting the other thing about this Olympics - for Russia it's get gold or die, so to take younger players over the better ones is very risky. I think we can see some young guns at 2014 WC.

Don't get me wrong, it is always nice to have some young guys on the team, but again, if we look for example on the team's forwards, there are 4 centers and 8 wingers:

4 Centers: Malkin, Datsyuk, somekind of 2-way center (probably Anisimov) and a Defensive center (probably Tereschenko)

Let's try to find a place for Loktionov or Grigorenko: they are not good defensively, so they can't be put in position of 2-way or defensive centers, but Malkin and Datsyuk are locks for first two lines.

Ok, now 8 wingers:
4 of them looks like locks now - Ovechkin, Semin, Radulov, Kovalchuk;
at least 2 of them should be rather good at defence (someone like Kokarev, again I don't see any young players who plays good enough at defense);
also it would be good to have some guy who can create traffic (someone like Kulemin, from young guys I can think of Kosov, but he is nowhere near at the moment);
and all that is left open is 1 spot

By the way, do you think team Canada will have a lot of young guys?

 

[Raptor1990]

By the way, do you think team Canada will have a lot of young guys?

Most likely Stamkos, Duchene, Tavares and some young D-mans like Myers perhaps.

 

[Caser]

Stamkos and Tavares are already NHL superstars, Duchene had decent season, haven't seen Myers a lot so can't tell about him. If we imagine that anyone of them would be Russian, then I'm sure that he would make the roster. Unfortunately our best talents like Kuznetsov and Tarasenko aren't on the same level yet, they are younger though and have some development time in reserve.