As any hockey fan, I was eagerly awaiting the announcement of Russia's roster for the upcoming Olympic hockey tournament, which should prove to be one of the best ever with quite a few countries icing Dream Team-like squads.
The announcement came on Christmas Day. Now that I'm done with all the various family gatherings, it gives me time for some in-depth, comprehensive analysis of the roster picked by Russian head coach, and former great Soviet player, Slava Bykov.
As expected the team is absolutely loaded offensively with a number of NHL's elite forwards such as Alexander Ovechkin, Evgeni Malkin, Ilya Kovalchuk, Pavel Datsyuk and Alexander Semin headlining the embarrassment of riches upfront.
Supremely talented and exciting, but largely forgotten and much maligned last year in Buffalo, Maxim Afinogenov has made the squad based on his phoenix like resurrection in Atlanta where he has spent most of the season on the first line with fellow Russians, Ilya Kovalchuk and Nikolai Antropov. He is currently sitting on 34 points in 36 games, including 13 goals.
The rest of the forwards come from the Russian KHL, but don't let that fool you into under ...
Read Full Article at Bleacher Report - NHL
Article written by Marat Ryndin
Comprehensive Analysis Of Russia’s Olympic Hockey Squad
December 26th, 2009 by Marat Ryndin Leave a reply »
Advertisement