Scott Rovak-USA TODAY Sports
NHL World Cup Of Hockey: Russia
As always, Russia could have some pretty ridiculous forward lines. As always, they would also be lacking on their blue line, as they lack NHL blue liners.
FORWARDS: Alex Ovechkin, Evgeni Malkin, Vladimir Tarasenko, Pavel Datsyuk, Nikita Kucherov, Evgeny Kuznetsov, Nikolai Kulemin, Evgeny Kuznetsov, Alexander Radulov, Nail Yakupov, Alexander Burmistrov, Artem Anisimov, Vladislav Namestnikov, Alexander Semin
I deliberately tried to include as many NHL players, or at least recent NHL players, as possible. Who knows if Russia and the KHL would even want to send over their best players for the NHL’s benefit? Everyone in this forward group has played in the NHL recently. The bottom six might be fairly weak, but their top six forwards could hang with anyone. Lots of potential on this forward line. There’s a good chance they’ll have the most skilled forwards at the 2016 World Cup.
DEFENSEMEN: Andrei Markov, Slava Voynov, Alexei Emelin, Nikita Nikitin, Fedor Tyutin, Dmitry Orlov, Dmitry Kulikov, Nikita Zadorov
Yeah, this blue line group isn’t that great. If Voynov is eligible to play (domestic violence charges pending), they have a shot to be decent. If he can’t, this will be similar to the 2014 Olympics.
GOALIES: Semyon Varlamov, Sergei Bobrovsky, Andrey Vasilevskiy
Bobrovsky would be the clear starter at the 2016 World Cup. Varly would be a nice backup. Vasilevskiy is a guy to watch.
Next: Finland