As one of the world’s hockey superpowers, Russia (and before that, the Soviet Union) has historically been renowned for producing explosive and high-scoring forwards, e.g. Alexander Mogilny, Pavel Bure, Sergei Fedorov, Alex Ovechkin, Evgeni Malkin, etc., just to name a few. Nevertheless, the country has also had its share of firepower from the blue line – in fact, outside of Sweden’s Nicklas Lidstrom and Borje Salming, the two highest-scoring European-born defensemen in NHL history both hail from Russia (and share the same given name): Sergei Gonchar and Sergei Zubov. The two Sergeis were among the elite defensemen of the late 1990s and 2000s, particularly when it came to quarterbacking the offense – while Zubov is a recent Hall of Fame inductee and Gonchar remains on the outside looking in, their careers are nevertheless comparable in statistics and achievements, thus bringing about the question:
Who was better – Sergei Gonchar or Sergei Zubov?
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