Russian Olympic Men's Hockey Team

With the Olympics now underway, many hockey fans are lamenting the fact that NHL players were not able to make the trip to Beijing to compete. However, that won’t stop us from speculating about what teams might have looked like, and who could have come out on top. With that in mind, let’s take a look at a potential version of the team from Russia.

The Roster

Analysis

This is the sort of team that could go all the way at the Olympics, or crash and burn in the quarterfinals as previous Russian teams have shown they are prone to doing. They have great top-line scoring and incredible goaltending, but lack a strong defense as well as the depth of the Canadians and Americans.

Up front, this team certainly has star power. If whatever has led to Alex Ovechkin’s longevity could be bottled, everyone in the NHL would be buying it. At 36, he’s remarkably emerged as a top-five point scorer again this year, and obviously he’s the best goal-scorer of all time. On the left side, Nikita Kucherov is one of the best players in the league when healthy. The second line of Panarin, Malkin and Kaprizov would have to be in contention for being the best secondary unit in the tournament. Panarin has now been a star on three different NHL teams, while Malkin has been one of the league’s most consistent producers during his career and Kaprizov has absolutely burst onto the scene these last two seasons. The third line, all of whom play for St. Louis, does start to fall off in quality a bit but is still strong; Tarasenko has returned to form this season and Buchnevich has fit in very well with the Blues. The fourth line declines slightly again but still contains some star power as Svechnikov is having an excellent season - his placement on this line is not an indictment of him but rather a reflection of the incredible wingers on this team.

The Russian defensemen are not as strong as their forwards. Provorov is very strong on their first pair, and Sergachev is obviously a good player as well, but they do not have an elite-level defensive corps. On the second pair, Orlov is scoring at a decent clip on Washington (22 points in 43 games), so he adds some offense while Zadorov is a big, mean, stay-at-home guy who will protect the crease. The remaining options are not particularly impressive, and another potential issue is that the best six Russian defensemen in the NHL right now are all left-handed. For that reason, I’ve slotted in KHLer Slava Voynov on the third pair because he’s the best right shot available. I don’t like the Voynov pick on a personal level because of his history of domestic violence, but from a hockey standpoint he’s a good player, and it’s also a realistic pick because he’s on the top pair of the Russian team in Beijing right now.

Despite their stars up front, the best part of this team is their goaltending. For my money, Andrei Vasilevski is the best goalie in the world right now, and Shesterkin is the frontrunner for the Vezina trophy at the All-Star break. This is a true wealth of talent in the crease, and is enough of a threat to any team to potentially get in their heads. It is not at all hard to picture the Russians winning a semifinal or gold medal game against a more well-rounded team because Ovechkin scores once and Vasilevski just refuses to be beaten.

Overall, this team would have been a front-runner in the tournament. I knew how scary their goalies would be, but their forwards are even better than I would have imagined, while their defense does leave a weakness that might have been exploitable for other top teams, which would have made things very interesting.

*Sources: QuantHockey, NHL.com