The age old misconception is that naturalizing imports creates a stronger more competitive team. Let's look at the last best on best tournament, the Olympics of Sochi 2014, and see how many teams played naturalized imports. Not Canada, not the USA, not Sweden, not Russia, not Finland, not the Czech Republic, not Latvia, not Slovenia, not Switzerland, not Austria, not Slovakia, not Norway, hmmm...seems like there's a trend here. Now let's name the teams who did _____. None of the 12 teams, what a stunner. Out of the 16 national teams at the WHC we rotate each year between having 1 team or 2 teams with imports. Belarus with Russian imports and Kazakhstan with North American ones will be featured this year, and likely next year it'll be back to just Belarus. That's 1 or 2 out of 16 teams. There is actually a reason for this too. When you naturalize imports, especially for the low profile leagues like the British or the Italian league, the best players you can get are anywhere from decent CHL grads, to your best scenario the fringe ECHL player who also played like 10 games in the AHL. So when you say "oh it'll make the team more competitive" what you really mean to say is competitive like the Florida Panthers (NHL) vs the Orlando Solar Bears (ECHL), and that sounds wonderfully entertaining. Hungary gets a lot of press for moving from imports to natural players but most countries are starting to go locally raised because when you raise your own talent there is no ceiling for how great you can become.
