the net. The Russians changed that. They changed our game." Commenting on their puck control abilities, Red Wings goalie Mike Vernon once said, "There were times when I could have left the net and gone out for a pizza, and the other team still wouldn't have the puck from those guys when I got back." In a 2020 interview, coach Scotty Bowman pointed out that the Russian Five brought a different style of breakout to the NHL, in which both forwards would leave the defensive zone while their defensemen still had the puck, and crisscross in the neutral zone. In his words, "that was a no in our game", but he stated that the Russian Five had an advantage because North American players had not seen that style before, and it eventually became integrated into the NHL. Jim Devellano believed the Russian Five had an impact that went beyond hockey. "I grew up with all this propaganda about how the Russians were our enemy. Now here we were, bringing the enemy over here. Then they were so good – the last missing piece for us to win. And they became our friends. I think I learned something about propaganda and how it gets our minds working against different people." Sergei Fedorov agreed, saying, "We need to build more bridges than weapons. That’s my deep feeling about what should happen between our countries. Like we did in Detroit, you know?" References Nicknamed groups of ice hockey players