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Imagine Nikita Kucherov and Kirill Kaprizov on the same line. Imagine Artemi Panarin and Valeri Nichushkin hopping over the boards next. Imagine Alex Ovechkin as a depth scorer. And most importantly, imagine trying to pick a No. 1 goalie between Igor Shesterkin, Andrei Vasilevskiy, Ilya Sorokin and Sergei Bobrovsky.
Yeah, Russia could hang.
Sure, the center depth isn’t great, with Evgeni Malkin the lone big name down the middle. And the defense doesn’t have a Cale Makar or a Quinn Hughes or a Rasmus Dahlin like Canada, the United States and Sweden have, respectively. But with Mikhail Sergachev, Vladislav Gavrikov, Ivan Provorov, Nikita Zadorov and more, the blue line would be solid, if unspectacular.
We’ll never know how Russia would have fared in Milan because the nation is still banned from Olympic competition, a sanction from the IOC due to its invasion of Ukraine. But as part of The Athletic’s player poll, in which 118 players participated (though didn’t all answer every question), we asked where they think Russia would have finished.
“The goaltending is so good it doesn’t even matter about the rest of the players,” said one player who voted gold.
“I saw their predicted lineup — like, if they were going to participate,” said another gold voter. “That’s a pretty big machine.”
“It’s just because goaltending’s huge,” said one silver voter. “Russia’s got Bob (Sergei Bobrovsky), and it’s a one-game shot. That’s the only reason.”
“Just based on goaltending in a smaller tournament, they’d probably finish first or second,” said another.
“They’re scary on paper,” one said. “They could beat anyone.”
Bronze was the most common vote, as the Canadians and Americans remain the heavy favorites.
“I think they would be very competitive,” said a bronze voter. “It’s different not having them. It’s a loss for the competition.”
“They’d have a f—ing nasty team,” said another bronze voter.
“I think they’d be up there,” another player said. “They have a ton of great players. I think they could hang with any other country.”
“They would have one of the more skilled and exciting forward groups to watch,” one player said. “If they pulled a few guys from the NHL right now and then a few guys from the KHL you’ve never heard of and threw them on the power play, they would pull off some pretty impressive stuff.”
“The D isn’t good enough,” one bronze voter said.
“They’d be in the mix with the U.S., Canada, Finland, Sweden,” said another.
“They could win it all,” said another. “They’re the third-best team.”
“Their team is pretty stacked in every position,” a bronze voter said. “I think they have arguably the best trio of goalies in the league. It could be Vasy, Shesterkin, Sorokin or Bobrovsky. … They have a lot of firepower up front, and they have a lot of good defensemen as well. But they have very, very good goalies.”
Not everybody had Russia on the podium, though.
“They don’t have any centermen,” said one player.
“I like other countries better, but they would be pretty fun to watch,” said another.
“They’d be a threat because of their goaltending, but they aren’t Canada or the U.S.,” said another.
“Roster-wise, they’d probably be up there in the top four — maybe as good as anybody,” said another. “It’d be a pretty cool team to see. It’s a shame.”
Reporting for this story by Arpon Basu, Peter Baugh, Max Bultman, Thomas Drance, Matthew Fairburn, Jesse Granger, Joshua Kloke, Kevin Kurz, Mark Lazerus, Julian McKenzie, Vincent Z. Mercogliano, Aaron Portzline, Scott Powers, Michael Russo, Jeremy Rutherford, Fluto Shinzawa, Joe Smith, Eric Stephens and Josh Yohe.
Written by Mark Lazerus.
