Enough with the whining about European style hockey in the NHL.  This is becoming the most tiresome complaints among “North American” hockey purists.  It has been about 20 years now since the doors blew open in Eastern Europe and those hockey players crossed the pond to seek prosperity and freedom in the NHL.  It did not take long for the league and it’s coaches to start integrating the skills of these players into how they played the game.

The first coach of complaint isn’t even from Europe, nor did he have many players from Europe on his team.  The first team that started using the defensive tactic of trapping was the New Jersey Devils. It was used against the heavily  Detroit Red Wings to perfection in the 1995 Stanley Cup finals.  Jacque Lemaire (Quebec) taught this scheme to his defensemen; Scott Stevens (Ontario), Ken Daneyko (Alberta), Bruce Driver (Ontario), Scott Niedermayer (British Columbia), Kevin Dean (Wisconsin), Shawn Chambers (Michigan), Chris McAlpine (Minnesota), and finally the only non-North American player on their D, Tommy Albelin(Sweden). They did have more euro’s playing on the offensive end, such as Bobby Holik and Valeri Zelepukin, but the key to the trap defense are the defensemen dropping back. Oddly enough, the team that Powers think can end this style of play; the Penguins, has a former Devil in Bill Guerin.

The puck control style didn’t become noticeable until legendary Head Coach Scotty Bowman realized that he could utilize the talents of 5 russians on one line in Detroit. When Sergei Fedorov, Igor Larionov, Slava Kozlov, Slava Fetisov and Vladamir Konstantinov were united as the Russian 5 for the Red Wings, they were a beautiful thing to watch. Their crisp passing from end-to-end was something not something happening in the NHL.

Of course, those in Canada, specifically dinosaurs like Don Cherry hated it. Why don’t Mr Cherry and Mr. Powers go watch a tape of Konstantinov when he was able to play and tell me if he didn’t deliver big checks to his opponents. This assumption that Euro’s don’t like to be physical is ridiculous. I give you Swedish player Nicklas Kronwall:

Stop the bitching about how the game is being played. I find dump and chase to be the most boring style of hockey, but several teams do it. The Ducks did this a couple years ago and won the cup. Where was the outrage over that style? Stop being so damn narrow minded and move on.

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