Evgeni Malkin and Sergei Gonchar named to Team Russia

by FrankD on Dec 26, 2009 11:22 AM EST in News Comment 6 comments

Credit to PittBlueDevil for jumping on this earlier.

Is anyone really surprised? I initially read some news on Christmas Day regarding this, but the Penguins are now officially confirming that both guys will, in fact, be members of Russia's 2010 team. I don't think many people doubted this, but I still think it's a pretty nice Christmas gift. Or at least a state-side Christmas gift, since my friend advised me the other day that January 7th is Russian Christmas. So I gladly accepted her gift, and then followed up by insisting that she wait another two weeks before I give her hers. After all, it has to be official.

Final rosters have to be submitted by February 15th, but as of right now the Russian provisionary roster is also joined by the likes of Alex Ovechkin, Alexander Semin, Pavel Datsyuk, Ilya Kovalchuk and Sergei Fedorov, to name a few. PittBlueDevil included a solid list of the players in this fanpost.

We'll dive more into the Olympics stuff over the next month or so. And by we I mean mostly Hooks, because his knowledge of what's going down in Vancouver is pretty much unmatched by anyone I know around the ol blogosphere (or even outside of it for that matter). So I can assure you that you'll be in good hands here on Pensburgh.

For those who celebrate, I hope everyone had a good holiday, and I hope you're all enjoying some time off. Business will resume as usual tomorrow against the Maple Leafs. Preview and thread to follow.

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That’s never worked on the Russians in my life, Frank. :-)

This roster is sick, sick, sick, but we knew that.

"Darling, you say Brooks Orpik 'checked' that guy. He did not 'get under him and put him into the wall'."--Beloved to me, Winter 2007

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by GreenEyedLilo on Dec 26, 2009 12:00 PM EST reply actions

Kovalev off

Surprised that Kovalev isn’t there? I’m not. I think it is a way for Head Coach Vyacheslav Bykov and General Manager Validslav Tretiak to make a statement about the talent level they see in the KHL and drop a player who they aren’t sure will show up anyway.

SLBD

by SLBD on Dec 26, 2009 12:04 PM EST reply actions

Yes and no. I mean, if we are going by tradition in a sense then yes it’s kinda weird not seeing kovalev on the Russian team. But if we are going by a more recent performance then I’m not that surprised really. As hooks said the other day, that deal in Ottawa isn’t lookin so hot

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by FrankD on Dec 26, 2009 1:40 PM EST via mobile up reply actions

It’s not a big surprise (as it was predicted by many) but quite many KHL faces… Morozov, Fedorov and Kozlov were locks, I thought, to make the team given their NHL experience.

We’ll see how they do in Vancouver, but I would’ve taken at least one of Kovalev or Slava Kozlov to the games.

Anyway enough firepower on the top 2 lines to carry them through to at least a medal. I hope they don’t pull the typical off the ice scandal that has been the case more than once with the Russian team.

You have to see it for yourself...

by Bla Razor on Dec 26, 2009 1:10 PM EST reply actions

I wasn’t sold on kozlov but I did expect morozov to get some consideration. As I said above, i’m not shocked about kovalev either but did expect him to get picked more than not

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by FrankD on Dec 26, 2009 1:42 PM EST via mobile up reply actions