Russia should begin to use the Torpedo System.

[Sergei Makarov]

After two consecutive fails, I think it's time to change some things in our hockey.
Among the things which should change, there is the system we employ. If we analyzed the characteristics of our players, I think the best system for them is the Torpedo. With this system, we could take advantage of our skating skill, our speed, vision, stickhandling ability and scoring touch.

I'm sure we would be almost invincibles if we used this great swedish creation.

[Night_Vole]

The torpedo is actually a Russian idea, created by the Tarasov who experimented with it in the early 70's. I do not know the exact reason (perhaps an older poster can help us here) it didn't catch on but I assume it's either because it did not work so well, or the more likely reason is that Tarasov was sacked before he could fully implement this system.

Either way the Torpedo system in order to work requires very skilled/versatile players to play the position of half backs, as they would be crucial for controlling the play. To make a modern comparison you know how Andrei Markov makes or breaks Montreal based on his exceptional vision and playmaking from the backend. Well basically you would need a bunch of Andrei Markovs on your team to really implement this system. The torpedo was implemented in the SEL during the 90s but found little success as they simply lacked the enough of the aforementioned type of skill players. Among current hockey powers Russia has the best chance to do this as we have a decent amount of the type of players for it i.e. Markov, Gonchar, Kulikov, Grebeshkov. And our current system which utilizes the stretch pass effectively would lend itself well to a transformation into the torpedo where as you could not do the same thing with Canadian and Finnish players.

Unfortunately this is not really a feasible alternative for us, as in order to implement the Torpedo players would have to practice with each other on a consistent basis so as to establish the chemistry necessary for the torpedo to work. Imo only in the glory days of soviet hockey was this system truly possible; in the modern hockey world I don't see anyone implementing the torpedo effectively
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