Greatest foreign 'Positional Force' ever in NHL?

[User9992]

Greatest foreign 'Positional Force' ever in NHL?

There some positions in which some certain foreign/European nations have been good at:

- Swedish Defensemen: Nicklas Lidström, Börje Salming, Erik Karlsson, Victor Hedman, Fredrik Olausson, Oliver Ekman-Larsson, Rasmus Dahlin, John Klingberg, Hampus Lindholm, Niklas Kronwall, Mattias Ekholm, Jonas Brodin et al.

- Swedish Forwards: Peter Forsberg, Mats Sundin, Henrik Zetterberg, Daniel Alfredsson, H. Sedin, D. Sedin, Nicklas Bäckström, Markus Näslund, Elias Petterson, Filip Forsberg, Elias Lindholm, William Nylander, Mika Zibanejad et al.

- Russian Forwards: Alexander Ovechkin, Evgeni Malkin, Nikita Kucherov, Pavel Datsyuk, Sergei Fedorov, Pavel Bure, Alexander Mogilny, Kirill Kaprizov, Artemi Panarin, Ilya Kovalchuk, Vladimir Tarasenko, Alexei Kovalev et al.

- Russian Goalies: Andrei Vasilevski, Igor Shestyorkin, Sergei Bobrovsky, Nikolai Khabibulin, Evgeny Nabokov, Semyon Varlamov, Ilya Sorokin, Ilya Bryzgalov et al.

- Finnish Goalies: Mikka Kiprusoff, Pekka Rinne, Tuuka Rask, Kari Lehtonen, Juuse Saros, Antti Niemi, Niklas Bäckström, Joonas Korpisalo, et al.

- Finnish Forwards: Teemu Selänne, Jari Kurri, Aleksander Barkov, Mikko Rantanen, Saku Koivu, Olli Jokinen, Mikko Koivu, Sebastian Aho, Teppo Numminen, Esa Tikkanen, Kimmo Timonen, Mikael Granlund, Teuvo Teräväinen, Patrik Laine et al.

- Czech Forwards: Jaromír Jágr, David Pastrnak, Patrik Elias, Jakub Vorácek, Milan Hejduk, David Krejcí, Václav Prospal, Petr Sýkora, Bobby Holik, Petr Nedved, Martin Straka, Robert Lang, Tomas Plekanec, Martin Havlat et al.

- Czech Goalies: Dominik Hasek, Tomas Vokoun, Petr Mrazek, Ondrej Pavelec, Roman Turek, Michal Neuvirth, Roman Cechmánek, Vitek Vanecek, Karel Vejmelka, Lukas Dostal et al.

- Slovak Forwards: Peter Stastny, Marian Hossa, Marian Gaborik, Peter Bondra, Pavol Demitra, Miroslav Satan, Zigmund Palffy, Josef Stumpel, Anton Stastny, Juraj Slafkovsky, Tomas Tatar, et al.

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[Coffee]

Awesome poll,

I pick Swedish D

 

[deca guard]

many fantastic russian forwards

 

[Albatros]

many fantastic russian forwards

Surprisingly few cups combined.

 

[the valiant effort]

It’s the Russian five

And Hasek

 

[User9992]

It’s the Russian five

And Hasek

I disagree. The best Foreign 6 should include Jagr & Lidstrom.

 

[deca guard]

Surprisingly few cups combined.

interesting point . ide think off top of my head is theyre outsiders in north america so not as meshed into the canadian hockey culture and thusly this adds up to not of tight of team chemistry as tightly knitted north american dominated rosters . imo the russians are more of lone wolf type personalities as opposed to rah rah type north americans who are better at team bonding . just an off the hip thought thats maybe way off

 

[CanadienShark]

Tough to say. I went with Russian forwards.

 

[Finnen]

Greatest foreign 'Positional Force' ever in NHL?

There some positions in which some certain foreign/European nations have been good at:

- Czech Forwards: Jaromír Jágr, David Pastrnak, Patrik Elias, Jakub Vorácek, Milan Hejduk, David Krejcí, Václav Prospal, Petr Sýkora, Bobby Holik, Petr Nedved, Martin Straka, Robert Lang, Tomas Plekanec, Martin Havlat et al.

Enough.

 

[ijuka]

Russian forwards, distantly followed by Swedish defensemen.

 

[archangel2]

Depends on which year we are talking about. Everything come in cycles

 

[bobholly39]

Russian forwards, distantly followed by Swedish defensemen.

Yeah, same for me.

For what it's worth, when I saw thread title I thought there would just be positions listed with 0 nationality. So, center vs winger vs defensemen vs goalie....and I would have voted Winger at #1.

 

[Coffee]

Russian forwards, distantly followed by Swedish defensemen.

Barely any cups but fine, whatever

 

[The Gr8 Dane]

Went with swede D

 

[jigglysquishy]

Are you including Americans with "foreigners" as well?

 

[User9992]

Are you including Americans with "foreigners" as well?

NHL is mostly American, most of the franchises in the league are American.

How can they be foreigners? But I agree that hockey isn't popular sport in States at all.

 

[jigglysquishy]

NHL is mostly American, most of the franchises in the league are American.

How can they be foreigners? But I agree that hockey isn't popular sport in States at all.

The "National " in NHL refers to Canada and didn't even have any American teams the first 13 years. It's a Canadian sport where Canadians are the largest group today and dwarf the rest of the world combined historically.

From a nationality standpoint, over the course of hockey history, it's Canada and then everywhere else.

If you're compartmentalizing nationality and position, including America makes sense.

 

[User9992]

The "National " in NHL refers to Canada and didn't even have any American teams the first 13 years. It's a Canadian sport where Canadians are the largest group today and dwarf the rest of the world combined historically.

From a nationality standpoint, over the course of hockey history, it's Canada and then everywhere else.

If you're compartmentalizing nationality and position, including America makes sense.

Used to be. Now it's mostly an American franchises.

 

[Toene]

Used to be. Now it's mostly an American franchises.

And the United-States are becoming better at producing players than Canada. Also, their projected national roster is stronger than Canada's. Canada is still very strong, but I'd take USA for a head-to-head match-up. Canada's goaltending is tragic compared to the US.