The NHL may be the American sports league with the largest international appeal. It is certainly Canada’s largest league in every sense. The league’s international appeal comes in large part from the international makeup of each NHL team’s roster. We have previously established that Russian NHL coverage is focused on following Russian players. Other international NHL fans are probably following the NHL to see the hockey triumphs of their compatriots. This opens a lot of avenues for the NHL since their teams are often so nationally diverse.
Take the reigning NHL champion Tampa Bay Lightning’s playoff roster as an example of the diversity that can be found on an NHL team. Tampa Bay played 21 players across their 23 game playoff run. Included in this list of 21 players are nine Canadians, five Americans, three Russians, two Czechs, a Slovak, and a Swede. So only five players who played for an American team that won an NHL championship are originally from the United States. Only two-thirds of that group were from the North American continent.
With so many international players in the mix, what is the national breakdown of the NHL? What other nations have enough hockey infrastructure to send a large number of players to the NHL? Using the list of all 784 players who have participated in an NHL game through November 1st of this season, I found the answer. Please note that the data gathered is the nationality of players used by the NHL, not the birthplace of players. A Bulgarian born Russian national like Alexandar Georgiev is counted as Russian.
The Results
North American ice hockey is still Canada’s game. 344 of the NHL’s 784 players come from the country with the maple leaf flag. Every Canadian Olympic hockey team boasts an elite NHL roster that includes many of the leagues stars. Imagine facing Connor McDavid , Steven Stamkos, and Nathan MacKinnon on the same line before playing Mitch Marner, Sidney Crosby, and Mark Stone on the next shift. That will be a reality for Canada’s Olympic opponents this year.
Forty-four of Canada’s NHL players are from la belle province, also known as Quebec. In other words, Quebec born NHL players outnumber Russian NHL players. Take those 44 Quebec born players out of Canada’s total and Canada has 300 NHL players. The depth of Canadian hockey talent is so great that Canada without Quebec still has the most plentiful pool of hockey talent in the world.
The NHL’s American contingent is significant as well. Americans make up more than a quarter of all NHL players. This may not seem impressive for a league where 25 of the 32 teams are based in the US, but the number of American players in the league has been growing. In 2010, about 20.5% of the players on opening night rosters were Americans. At the time that was the highest percentage of Americans the NHL had ever seen on an opening night roster. Over the past eleven years that percentage has jumped 6% to 26.5% of the NHL.
Figure 3 is a heat map that plots the origin countries of NHL players. Each country represented by at least one player has a color assigned to it that corresponds to the number of players it has in the NHL. A scale is included on the right to explain how many players each color represents. Canada and the United States have so many more players than any other country that they are represented by vastly different colors than Europe which is painted in various shades of blue. Together Canadians and Americans make up the lions share (70.4%) of the NHL.
Europe
NHL players that are not Canadians or Americans are almost exclusively from Europe. The only exceptions are Russians who were born in a non-Russian Soviet Socialist Republic under the Soviet Union (such as Anton Khudobin) or Siberia (such as Kirill Kaprizov). The Nordic countries and Russia provide the largest number of foreign NHL players.
Sweden & Finland
Sweden sends a lot of players to the NHL. There are 73 Swedish players scattered across the league, dwarfing the 46 Finnish and 42 Russian player counts. Henrik Lundqvist, Gabriel Landerskog, Jonas Brodin, Elias Petterson, Erik Karlsson, Victor Hedman, Nicklas Backstrom are just some of the Swedes NHL fans may recognize by name. While the name Zibanejad has its origin in Farsi, New York Rangers’ forward Mika Zibanejad is also Swedish. William Nylander, despite being born in Canada, is also Swedish and is counted as a Swede for all hockey purposes. Rumors have swirled that Nylander could play on the Swedish Olympic team but at the moment it seems he will not be on Sweden’s squad for the upcoming Winter Olympic Games.
Finland has the fourth largest group of players with 46. Finland’s best may not be as flashy as Sweden’s but it includes Aleksander Barkov and Mikko Rantanen. The number of Finns in the NHL is impressive considering how small Finald’s population is relative to the other countries on the list. Sweden and Czechia are home to over 10 million people each. Canada, Russia, the United States are far larger. Finland’s population totals to roughly 5.5 million people. That is a little larger than half of Sweden or Czechia’s population and far smaller than Russia’s 144 million. Also worth noting is the very high proportion of Finland’s NHL stars that have been goaltenders. Tuuka Rask, Pekka Rinne, Miikka Kiprusoff, and Niklas Backstrom have all represented Finland in the NHL.
Russia
The NHL’s Russians, a group smaller than the Swedes and Finns, is arguably more dynamic. What the NHL’s Russian contingent lacks in size it makes up for in talent. Ovechkin, Kucherov, Panarin, Tarasenko, Kuznetsov and Kaprizov are some of the flashiest scorers in the league. Reigning Venzina trophy winner Andrei Vasilevskiy is another popular Russian hockey import.
The relationship between Russia and the NHL is similar to that between Japan and the MLB. Both Russia and Japan are home to one of the best leagues in their respective sport. High performing Russian and Japanese players have moved to the NHL and MLB to give those leagues some of their greatest stars. However, the local leagues lessen the demand for players to come and play in the United States or Canada. The very best of Russian hockey or Japanese baseball may make the transition to the United States for more money or fame, but a lot of borderline NHL or MLB talent may stay in their local league rather than trying to brave the world of the AHL or AAA baseball. No doubt this is part of why Russia, a hockey superpower with a far larger population than Sweden or Finland, sends less players to the NHL than its Nordic neighbors. Former Atlanta Thrashers great Ilya Kovalchuk even opted to leave the NHL for the Russian KHL after playing part of the season in each league because of the 2012-2013 NHL lockout.
The last nations with more than 10 NHL players: Czechia & Switzerland
Czechia, formerly the Czech Republic and one half of Czechoslovakia before that, is the last nation to provide a whole NHL team’s roster-worth of players. 26 NHL players come from the Central European country. Jakub Voracek and David Pastrnak are perhaps the most recognizable Czech players in the league, but the best Czech player of all time has to the great Jaromir Jagr.
The last nation not included in the ‘Other’ section for having less than 10 NHL players is Switzerland. Only 11 Swiss players are in the NHL, but it is a pretty good group of 11. Roman Josi, Nino Neiderreiter, Kevin Fiala, Pius Suter, and Timo Meier are all Swiss players. Josi has been excellent this year and Meier is currently averaging over a point per game.
Who is in the ‘Other’ nations category?
A family friend and former NHL assistant GM has often lectured me and another Ten Thousand Sports writer about the odd regional nature of sports. The popularity of a sport does not always transfer over borders, even the borders of relatively culturally and historically similar countries. Norwegian hockey is the poster-child of this concept. Sweden and Finland are hockey juggernauts. Their Nordic neighbor Norway only has one player in the NHL, Minnesota’s Mats Zuccarello.
A number of other players are the only representative of their respective nation in the NHL. Michael Raffl is Austria’s only NHL player. Brendan Perlini is Great Britain’s only representative. Welsh-born Nathan Walker will be the only Australian in the NHL if he gets promoted again from the AHL. Washington’s Daniel Sprong is the only NHL Dutchman. Tiny Slovenia, with a population of a little over two-million people, is well represented by their only NHL player, Anze Kopitar. Belarus, Denmark, France, Germany and Latvia also have a small number of NHL players, but they all have more than one.
Slovakia is worth mentioning among all of these ‘Other’ nations. Currently there are eight Slovaks in the NHL. However, Slovakia has produced many fantastic, historic NHL players like Peter Stastny, Marian Gaborik, and Marian Hossa. The most famous Slovak in the NHL at the moment is 44-year-old Zdeno Chara. On top of playing in the league at the age of 44, Chara also stands out for being the tallest player to ever play in the league. Slovak goaltender Jaroslav Halak is still putting up good numbers as well and he may make one final run as Slovakia’s Olympic goaltender.