Valeri Kharlamov, who will be inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame Monday, is one of the great players of his generation according to those who played against him.

One for the ages
By John McGourty | NHL.com
Nov. 3, 2005

North American rivals of the late Valeri Kharlamov remembered his brilliance on the eve of his Monday induction into the Hockey Hall of Fame.

Murray Williamson, the Winnipeg native who coached the U.S. Olympic team in 1968 and 1972, had the earliest recollection. Williamson, who is being inducted into the U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame in Eveleth, Minn., this weekend, became friends with Soviet hockey pioneer and coach Anatoly Tarasov and visited the Red Army's training center in Moscow in 1969.

"I believe I was the first Westerner to get in," Williamson recalled. "Tarasov was a very gracious man. We sat and talked in the grandstand while his team practiced. Every once in a while, he'd blow a whistle, run down the stands and ream some player, then return and graciously resume the conversation. He pointed down at a new player and said, 'There's the best player in the world.' It was Kharlamov and he was 20. He joined the national team that year.

"Kharlamov was a hell of a player, strong as a bull and wiry, the greatest little guy in the world," Williamson said. "The Soviets won the 1972 Olympic gold medal at Sapporo, Japan, and we got silver. That was the same team that played the NHL six months later in the Summit Series. That was their best team ever, better than the mid-1980s team because they were bigger and tougher and just as skilled."

The Americans played a 50-game exhibition schedule against college and minor-league professional teams before five games against the Soviets just prior to the Olympics.

"We didn't do well at all in the first game, lost by 10 goals, 13-3," said forward Dick McGlynn. "And, we got a pretty good beating in the second game, but we out-shot them in the fifth game. Their strength was pretty much unknown in North America in 1972. Kharlamov, to this day, is the only player that could defy gravity, his body going one way while he controlled the puck in a different direction.

"At the end of the second period in our game in Bloomington, Minn., Tarasov whispered to me, 'I eased up.' That infuriated me and I told him he certainly did not," Williamson recalled. "He pulled me into his dressing room and there were Kharlamov, Ragulin, Mikhailov, about five of his top players undressing. We still got whipped. The Canadians played 110 percent to beat them in the Summit Series. Their skill level wasn't equal, but their determination was the difference. That Canadian toughness brought that team through. But, Kharlamov destroyed them in the first game in Montreal and put the fear in them."

"It sent a shock across Canada when Kharlamov scored twice to lead the Soviets to a 7-3 victory in the first game of the Summit Series," said former Philadelphia Flyers defenseman Joe Watson. "I wasn't in that series, but I played against him twice. When a guy can deke you equally well to both sides at his skill level, wow, he was just a very unique player. He had a great wrist shot for a small guy. From the stands, you didn't think he was little because he 'played big,' a lot like my teammate, Bobby Clarke. Bobby was 175 pounds and played like he was 225, same thing with Kharlamov. They were the same type of player in that regard. When those great players rise to big occasions, they bring everybody with them."

Kharlamov and Clarke are forever linked in hockey lore for Clarke's Summit Series Game 6 slash that hobbled the Soviet star the rest of the series. Some have portrayed Kharlamov as an innocent victim. He wasn't. Throughout his career, he gave as well as he took and was the Soviet Summit Series leader in penalty minutes, indelicately earning sin-bin time for slashing, high-sticking, holding and misconduct.

We mention this only to give the complete picture of a talented, gritty player who stood atop the international hockey world for a decade. He wasn't a saint or a whiner. He was an inspirational leader who, after being forced out of Game 7 with a broken ankle, returned to play in Game 8.

North Americans had admired Toronto Maple Leaf defenseman Bobby Baun for helping lead his team to the 1964 Stanley Cup while playing with a similar injury. How could they not accord the same respect to Kharlamov? They did respect him. This induction proves it.

For most of his career, Kharlamov played on line with right wing Boris Mikhailov, who would later coach the national team and is certainly a worthy candidate for Hockey Hall of Fame consideration, and center Vladimir Petrov. They were strong, fierce, highly skilled and by all regards, one of the finest lines in the history of hockey.

"I saw Kharlamov in practice before the Summit Series and then in Game 1 he takes off on me and I'm thinking, 'Who the heck is this guy?'" recalled Hockey Hall of Famer Brad Park, who paired effectively with the late Detroit Red Wings defenseman Gary Bergman. "Kharlamov had unbelievable acceleration. From blue line to blue line, he may have been as fast as Yvon Cournoyer, and there haven't ever been many as fast as Yvon. Kharlamov could get away from defenders. He'd come across the blue line, make a cut and things would start happening. He was very smart. He had individual skills you weren't expecting, hadn't seen.

"We gained a lot of respect for him and, after a few games, changed how we played him," Park continued. "We couldn't stand them up. We had to allow for the speed and quickness. Then, our conditioning kicked in. We lost the fifth game but it was the first time we controlled most of the action."

Kharlamov awed North American rivals

One Canadian player's utter belief in himself not only paved the way for his own induction into the Hockey Hall of Fame, it left him fearless in the face of the Soviets. Goalie Tony Esposito felt he had Kharlamov's number.

"He didn't have a hard enough shot to blow it by me," Esposito said. "If he can't blow it by me, I have the advantage. Alexandr Yakushev had the shot. Mikhailov made things happen and Kharlamov was the speed on the outside. But he could charge inside, too. Mikhailov set him up with great passes and Petrov was an excellent player too. I was a reflex goalie with good lateral movement and that was the best style against them. They never shot until they were within 10 feet of the goal. Kharlamov was dangerous, no doubt about it."

Kharlamov would return to play North American pros, including the 1974 Pro Classic against the World Hockey Association stars and the 1975-76 four-game exhibition against NHL teams, when the Soviets won three games. In 40 games played against North American professionals, Kharlamov collected 19 goals and 29 assists for 48 points. That's 1.2 points per game, some of them against All-Star teams and Stanley Cup winners. This is a guy who belongs in the Hockey Hall of Fame.

Interestingly, through most of Kharlamov's domestic and international career, there were rarely times his assists exceeded his goals by such a margin. It's clear that against North American professionals Kharlamov put aside individual goals for the team's good. The good ones do.

During Kharlamov's time with the Soviet national team, they won eight World or European championships. His Red Army team won eleven league championships. In 14 seasons in the Soviet league, Kharlamov had 293 goals and 214 assists.

He continued to play annually in World Championships against the best amateur North American players and in the 1976 (gold) and 1980 (silver) Olympics.

American forward Mike Eruzione would have the delicious experience of scoring the game-winning goal against the Soviets in the 1980 Olympics, but his best memory of Kharlamov came five years earlier in the 1975 World Championships in Dusseldorf, Germany.

"Kharlamov came down the right wing, 2-on-1 with Yakushev," Eruzione recalled. "Jack Brownschidle (later Blues and Whalers) was covering him and Jimmy Warden was in goal for us. Jack played the 2-on-1 perfectly. Kharlamov goes to take a slap shot but instead, with one fluid movement, he kicks the puck with his right skate 15 feet to Yakushev and hits him in stride. Meanwhile, Kharlamov completes the slap shot swing and Jimmy's leaning to make the save on Kharlamov. Yakushev one-times it into a wide-open net.

"Jack skates over to coach Bob Johnson with his arms wide open, like 'What was that?"' Eruzione continued. "On the bench, we were in awe. We spent half the practice the next day trying it and no one could do it. That was just one amazing thing that I saw him do. He was electrifying, the Cournoyer of Russian hockey. It seemed his feet never touched the ice. He was that great."

Kharlamov's rather quick decline was a factor in the American victory, Eruzione believes. Soviet coach Viktor Tikhonov left Kharlamov off the 1981 Canada Cup team and within a few months he was dead.

"We caught him toward the end of his career," Eruzione said. "But at his best, he was one of the greatest players I have ever seen. Think about how many players this applies to: Every time he got the puck, you leaned forward in your seat to see what he would do, like Bobby Orr, Mario Lemieux or Wayne Gretzky."