Former Red Wings forward and current Moscow Dynamo assistant coach Slava Kozlov gave an incredibly long interview to Sport-Express’s Arthur Khairullin, and Detroit Hockey Now’s Bob Duff discovered it.
According to Duff, Kozlov has doubts as to whether the Russian Five would have had the same kind of impact today that they did during the mid-90’s:
In the mid-1990s, the NHL was in the midst of the so-called Dead Puck Era. The neutral zone trap was in vogue. Larionov liked to call it “destroy hockey.”
“Probably, at that time we played hockey that others did not yet understand,” Kozlov said of the Russian Five.
Today’s NHL is all about skill. Fast pace and creativity are priorities. It’s a skater’s game.
In fact, it’s just about everything that the members of the Russian Five were making the emphasis of their style of game. That’s why Kozlov isn’t so sure the unit could dominate today as it did back then.
“I don’t know how it would be now, but back then it was a new thing that worked,” Kozlov said.
Duff continues; I disagree with Kozlov to some extent, because the Russian Five’s members were just so damn talented that they’d still stand out today.
Slava Kozlov was one of my favorite players back in the mid 90s. Had a such memorable OT goal to beat Chicago and send us to the Cup Final for the first in 30 years. I still wish we had kept him and traded someone else to Buffalo in the Hasek trade.