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Russians Dominate For Now
by PuckStopsHere on 10/28/08 at 04:30 PM ET
Comments (4)
Last season, the NHL MVP was Alexander Ovechkin of the Washington Capitals. The runner up to the award was Evgeni Malkin of the Pittsburgh Penguins. The top two goal scorers in the league were Ovechkin and Ilya Kovalchuk of the Atlanta Thrashers. All of these players are Russians.
This season, the scoring race is not much different so far. Malkin and Alexander Semin of Washington are tied for the scoring lead. They are both Russians.
There is no question that Russian players have the most dominant offensive players in the last while in the NHL. However, this is a situation likely to change in the near future. The pipeline of Russian talent in the NHL is drying up.
This season there have been two Russian rookies who have played in the NHL so far. They are Nikolai Kulemin of the Toronto Maple Leafs and Nikita Filatov of the Columbus Blue Jackets. This is a low number. Other European nations that have historically produced approximately as many players as Russia are producing more rookies. There are five Swedish rookies in the league so far this year (Fabien Brunnstrom of the Dallas Stars, Oscar Moller of the Los Angeles Kings, Patric Hornqvist of the Nashville Predators, Patrik Berglund of the St Louis Blues and Niklas Hjalmarsson of the Chicago Blackhawks). Similarly, there have been five Czech rookies so far this year as well (Jakub Voracek of the Columbus Blue Jackets, Petr Vrana of the New Jersey Devils, Michael Frolik of the Florida Panthers and Tomas Plihal and Lukas Kaspar of the San Jose Sharks). Russia is clearly producing less NHL players than either of these countries.
The reason for this is the KHL. It gives Russians a place to play in their homeland. It gives Russians a chance to make more money than they would if they were stuck in the AHL on a two-way contract. It makes it less likely that a Russian will leave for the NHL.
The KHL also puts significant hurdles in the way of Russian players who transfer to North America. They try very hard to sign them to contracts. They make it hard for young Russian players to depart from their homeland. They dispute contract status when players do transfer. This serves to help dry up the pipeline of Russian talent that comes to the NHL.
Although Russians hold the top positions in the scoring race right now and did last year, it is unlikely that sufficient new young Russians will come to the NHL to allow that to continue. They will stay at home in the KHL.
This reduces the NHL’s talent pool. It reduces it in the most important part. The pipeline of most talented players who might be top scorers from Russia is being cut off.
Some people (such as my friends at faux rumors) like to say that the KHL is not a threat to the NHL. They argue that the league is not going to put the NHL out of business. The league is not likely to ever draw top North American talent away from the NHL. On those points, they are correct. However, plugging up the pipeline that has produced the top scorers in the NHL in the past couple of years is a threat. It is a very real one that is already happening. The NHL will notice a significant drop in the number of talented Russian players in its ranks in the near future. The ones who are here now are not being replaced as fast as they are leaving. That threatens the quality of NHL play. If the NHL never gets players who would have been stars because they stay in Russia, the NHL is weaker for it.
Filed in: | The Puck Stops Here | Permalink
Tags: Alexander+Ovechkin, Alexander+Semin, Evgeni+Malkin, KHL, Russia,
Comments
There is no question that Russian players have the most dominant offensive players in the last while in the NHL.
Although your statement is a mess, I would most definitely question it. There are currently four Russians in the top 25 in scoring. There were four in 07-08, and three in both 06-07 and 05-06. Compare that to five Russians in 00-01 and 01-02. Big difference?
You might say that Russians are closer to the top now, and I’d reply that if Sid didn’t miss 30 games and Thornton’s wingers weren’t playing with cement gloves last year, the scoring race would have looked a bit different.
And if you did a little research, you might have noticed that the number of Russian players has been declining for at least the last five years, losing nearly half their number over that span. So this issue pre-dates the KHL.
Posted by shep from california on 10/28/08 at 07:45 PM ET
Yes of course the problem predates the KHL. In fact I wrote this about it last year.
The KHL does give the Russians more reasons to stay home than before - but it is the lack of a transfer agreement that was the real start of the decline in Russian players in the NHL.
Posted by PuckStopsHere on 10/29/08 at 03:12 AM ET
I agree with your points, but not your analysis. You can’t hold superstars as representative of the population. As superstars, they are by definition the tail-end of the population.
Posted by CheGordito on 11/06/08 at 04:30 PM ET
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I think you chose the wrong Russian NHLers to talk about.
A young Pavel Datsyuk in Russia today might not come over to the NHL and might never develop into the superstar he is, but the situation facing a young Ovechkin or Malkin is very different. They don’t develop into superstars in the NHL, they enter the NHL as superstars. For them, the decision between NHL and KHL is very different than it is for most players.
The NHL will probably always have the Ovechkins and Malkins, but losing out on potential Datsyuks is a huge blow to the NHL.
Posted by Ryan from Toronto on 10/28/08 at 04:43 PM ET