Well, Larionov's point is that it's not the talent pool. The talent pool has players to spare. It's the coaching ruining everything.
http://www.theplayerstribune.com/miracl ... ey-russia/Quote:
The problem is more philosophical and starts way before players get to the NHL. It’s easier to destroy than to create. As a coach, it’s easier to tell your players to suffocate the opposing team and not turn the puck over. There are still players whose imagination and creativity capture the Soviet spirit — Johnny Gaudreau in Calgary, Patrick Kane and Jonathan Toews in Chicago just to name a few. However, they are becoming exceptions to the rule. Many young players who are intelligent and can see the game four moves ahead are not valued. They’re told “simple, simple, simple.”
That mentality is kind of boring. Nobody wants to get fired. Nobody wants to get sent down to the minors. If you look at the coaches in Juniors and minor league hockey, many of them were not skill players. It’s a lot of former enforcers and grinders who take these coaching jobs. Naturally, they tell their players to be just like them. Their players are 17, 18 years old — younger than I was when I joined the Red Army team. Say what you want about the Whiplash mentality (or the Soviet mentality), but if coaches are going to push kids at that age, why are they pushing them to play a simple game? Why aren’t coaches pushing them to create a masterpiece?
We lose a lot of Pavel Datsyuks to the closed-minded nature of the AHL and NHL.
I remember Datsyuk made a couple turnovers in a game when he first came to Detroit at age 23. Players on the team like Brett Hull, Brendan Shanahan, Steve Yzerman and myself had to tell him, “Pavel, just keep doing what you’re doing.” Thankfully, Scotty Bowman had the wisdom to see his potential. If he was on a different team with a different coach who did not appreciate that kind of unique skill, Datsyuk might have been out of the league. He would be playing in the KHL tonight.
In Russia right now, there are four or five Datsyuks playing in the KHL who never got their chance. Sergei Mozyakin led the KHL in scoring last season and was in the scoring race for most of his 20s. But he’s 33 now and nobody in America has ever heard of him. Why? Most North American coaches don’t have the patience for his style of play.
I roll my eyes whenever I hear people talk about how fast the game is now and how sophisticated the systems have become. Watching the game, does it really seem much faster? Does it really seem more advanced? We had a saying in the Soviet days that I wish more coaches and scouts would adopt today: It’s not how fast you skate, it’s how fast you think.
There's no doubt in my mind that the NHL can support 32 teams -- if not necessarily in the 32 places the NHL has in mind -- if teams could just believe in playing to win.
Though it's funny that he singles out Toews as a player with offensive creativity when he's become almost the archetype of the North American play-not-to-lose player.
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Molly Lambert wrote:
The future holds the possibility to be great or terrible, and since it has not yet occurred it remains simultaneously both.