Varnakov fills Russia’s WJC camp roster with a few surprises

Team Russia’s head coach Mikhail Varnakov announced his 29-player roster for the world junior camp on Tuesday and there were some surprises.

The list raised a number of questions as it lacked last season’s bronze medalists Daniil Zharkov, and Pavel Koledov, who seems to be available for this year’s tournament, as well as Vladimir Tkachev, who turned a few a heads at the recent Subway Super Series.

On Thursday the Buffalo Sabres announced that they had made returnee Mikhail Grigorenko available for the Russian national squad.

“Grigorenko definitely would be a serious addition to our team. … We would be glad to have him,” assistant coach Evgeny Koreshkov told R-Sport, prior to the star forward’s release.

“He played well at the last world juniors but you always expect people to play a little better. Grigorenko can be a leader of Team Russia this year.

“We won Game 3 of the [Subway Super] series against Team OHL 5-2 and we had [Nikita] Zadorov on our team. He brought some confidence into the room, played well and racked up three assists. We need guys like that. Guys who have some NHL experience. Grigorenko is one of them. NHL experience gives you a certain mentality. Guys like that should be leaders on the team.”

While that clears things up Grigorenko’s situation, it still doesn’t explain why Varnakov didn’t select players he tagged earlier this season as “reliable.”

“I didn’t call up anybody for their past achievements. This is exactly why Koledov and Zharkov are not on the list. We evaluate current conditions of the candidates and these guys simply didn’t make the cut,” Varnakov told ITAR-TASS reporter Mikhail Zislis.

“Koledov didn’t look strong at the [Subway] Super Series in Canada. Zharkov didn’t play his best at the tournament in Finland. Why did I call up 29 players and not 28 as I planned earlier? Forward [Eduard] Gimatov may miss the tournament because of his medical condition.”

Gimatov received a series-ending injury in Game 2 of the Super Series as he collided knee-on-knee with Quebec’s Daniel Walcott. He was cleared for on-ice practice last week.

Varnakov also didn’t select defencemen Dmitry Ogurtsov, Gleb Koryagin and Dmitry Yudin who log serious minutes with their KHL clubs.

“The guys who made the roster played better in international tournaments. [Vladislav] Gavrikov and [Rushan] Rafikov are among them. I couldn’t call up KHL guys for the series and they didn’t impress me in a tournament before that,” explained Varnakov.

“As for Vladimir Tkachev, we already have a clear idea of who are our top six forwards. If he scored a few more goals in Quebec, than we might have called him up. However, he didn’t prove to us he’s better than any of top six guys and he’s not going to be as effective on a third or fourth line as, say, [Igor] Rudenkov. We picked Rudenkov because he’s better defensively and he can kill penalties.”

Varnakov also pointed out Baie-Comeau’s Denis Gorbunov.

“We’re short on good centre forwards and the kid played well against Canadians. He deserved a shot at making it to the world juniors,” he said.

The only position that wasn’t questioned by either fans or the media at the camp were the goaltenders. Varnakov chose Andrei Vasilevsky, Igor Ustinsky and Ivan Nalimov.

One of the most respected Russian hockey analysts, Sergei Gimaev, reminds everyone that making questionable choices is just something Varnakov does.

“Varnakov always has a mind of his own. Whether he is right or not will be determined by the way the tournament goes. If we’re going to play well, that would mean he did everything right,” Gimaev told R-Sport. “Again – Varnakov always has his own point of view and it’s really hard to change his mind. Last year’s championship is a great example.”

“I agree it’s a bit unclear why he favored some guys over others. Personally, I don’t understand why he didn’t call up [Sergey] Tolchinsky – he’s one of the most dangerous forwards we got. It was definitely hard for Varnakov to make a choice. Had we hands down lost the Super Series, there would be a lot of guys you could point out and say they played bad.

Gimaev also says one of Varnakov’s best traits is that he finally removed corruption from Russia’s junior team, which was a major problem several years ago.

“Sometimes you have a team built on leaders, mediocre players and weak players. This year there are no weak players in the camp. Props to Varnakov for not having paid for players on the team, that’s really important. Varnakov knows how to build a team and it’s really important he knows what he’s doing,” he said.