The NHL by nationality: which country has produced the most players?

How many countries have had a player in the NHL?

The average Canadian player vs the average American and Slovenian

So what conclusions can we actually draw?

You might be surprised by the answer

Ever wonder which country has produced the most hockey players? You probably think you already know the answer. But let’s take a look at Quant Hockey’s all-time stats data to figure out which country has produced the most NHL players.

Analyzing the data

We're going to look at each country's player count as well as their total career goals, assists, and points to see if we can determine which nation, if any, has produced the best players on average.

How many countries have had a player in the NHL?

Since the league began, only 31 countries have produced talent good enough to make it to the NHL, 21 of which sent fewer than 30 players. Latvia, Italy, Belarus, Denmark, Austria, France, Kazakhstan, Norway, Ukraine, the Netherlands, Slovenia, Poland, South Korea, Croatia, Australia, Lebanon, Japan, Ireland, Jamaica, Hungary, and Lithuania all fall into that category

United Kingdom 0.5%

Players: 40 Goals: 5775 Assists: 1532 Points: 2625

Germany 0.5%

Players: 44 Goals: 1317 Assists: 2397 Points: 3714

Switzerland 0.6%

Players: 92 Goals: 1264 Assists: 2251 Points: 3515

Slovakia 1.1%

Players: 92 Goals: 5735 Assists: 8489 Points: 14,224

Czechia 3.0%

Players: 252 Goals: 12,421 Assists: 22,437 Points: 34,858

Finland 3.1%

Players: 256 Goals: 8714 Assists: 15,677 Points: 24,391

Russia 3.4%

Players: 287 Goals: 13,961 Assists: 23,321 Points: 37,282

Sweden 4.8%

Players: 404 Goals: 18,944 Assists: 35,939 Points: 54,833

United States 15.7%

Players: 1385 Goals: 52,671 Assists: 88,739 Points: 141,410

Canada 64.6%

Players: 5402 Goals: 249,178 Assists: 396,893 Points: 646,071

Quantity isn't always quality

Canada might have produced an overwhelming number of NHL players but that doesn't mean the Canadians have produced the best players on average.

The average Canadian player vs the average American and Slovenian

For example, the average Canadian player has produced 46.1 goals whereas the average American player produced 38 goals and the average Slovenian player produced 130.7 goals.

Averages don't tell the whole story

Slovenia only had such a high average of goals scored because the country has only had 3 people officially play in the NHL according to Quant Hockey, one of which is Anze Kopitar who has a career total of 390 goals scored.

So what conclusions can we actually draw?

We can draw many conclusions beyond which country has produced the most players. Defining which country, if any, has produced the best players is a lot more difficult than sorting out which has produced the most.

Maybe look at NHL's top 100

If you really want to know which country has produced the best players, you might want to look at Quant Hockey's top 100 players of all time and draw your own conclusions.