Wednesday is a big day in the Olympic men’s hockey tournament. We now know the four quarterfinal matches. Canada will play the Czech Republic, the United States will play Sweden, Slovakia will play Germany and Switzerland will play Finland.
These are four juicy matches that would leave all hockey fans worldwide mightily excited. There is one hockey superpower not here. That is Russia, the country that has won nine gold medals in Olympic hockey since 1956, with Cortina, Italy as the host 70 years ago.
Let’s just take a look at some of the players who would have made Team Russia. Yes folks, this team could have been a gold medal contender.
The Russian forwards would have been led by Nikita Kucherov of the Tampa Bay Lightning and Alexander Ovechkin of the Washington Capitals. Kucherov is third in the NHL with 91 points and Ovechkin is the NHL all-time leader in goals with 919.
Ovechkin and Kucherov would have been joined by Minnesota Wild superstar left winger Kirill Kaprizov, new Los Angeles Kings left winger Artemi Panarin, Carolina Hurricanes right winger Andrei Svechnikov, Columbus Blue Jackets right winger Kirill Marchenko, Montreal Canadiens rookie right winger Ivan Demidov, Vegas Golden Knights right winger Pavel Dorofeyev, Pittsburgh Penguins center Evgeni Malkin, and Golden Knights center Ivan Barbashev.
The Russian blueliners would have included Mikhail Sergachev of the Utah Mammoth, Dmitry Orlov of the San Jose Sharks, Alexander Nikishkin of the Carolina Hurricanes, Vladislav Gavrikov of the New York Rangers, and Ivan Provorov of the Columbus Blue Jackets.
There is no doubt goaltending would have been a Russian strength. They would have been led by Tampa Bay Lightning goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy (NHL win leader with 27), Florida Panthers goaltender and Stanley Cup champ the last two years Sergei Bobrovsky, and NHL shutout leader Ilya Sorokin of the New York Islanders.
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