NHL awards races highlight league's expanding reach

Of the four major professional North American sports leagues, the NHL is the only one where the last team standing doesn’t usually refer to itself as “World Champion.” In the NFL and NBA, winners often use that title, and in baseball, “World” is literally part of the name of the championship series. Ironically, the NHL is the one league where it might make the most sense.

Today’s NHL is a veritable United Nations General Assembly. Sure, Canada and the USA still provide the bulk of the league’s players, but at the start of the 2021-22 NHL season, 22 different countries were represented on team rosters. And it’s not just token representation.

Consider the number of countries whose players will be in the running for major trophies to be awarded this year. The Hart Trophy as Most Valuable Player looks to be a race among two Canadians (the Edmonton Oilers’ Connor McDavid and Florida Panthers’ Jonathan Huberdeau), one German (the Oilers’ Leon Draisaitl) and an American (the Toronto Maple Leafs’ Auston Matthews). The Norris Trophy for best defenseman looks to be a three-horse race, with the thoroughbreds hailing from Switzerland (Roman Josi of the Nashville Predators), Canada (Cale Makar of the Colorado Avalanche) and Sweden (Victor Hedman of the Tampa Bay Lightning).

How about the league’s best goalie? That will go to a Russian, Swede, Finn or Dane, with Russians Igor Shesterkin of the New York Rangers and Andrei Vasilevskiy of the Lightning being favorites along with the Calgary Flames’ Jacob Markstrom (Sweden), the Predators’ Juuse Saros (Finland) and the Carolina Hurricanes’ Frederik Andersen (Denmark).

Another German player, the Detroit Red Wings’ Moritz Seider, looks like he may be the favorite for the Calder Trophy winner as best rookie, but he’ll face stiff competition from, among others, a Swede (his Red Wings teammate Lucas Raymond), an American (the Anaheim Ducks’ Trevor Zegras) and a Canadian (Toronto’s Michael Bunting).

Want more proof of the increasing international flavor of the NHL? Think about this astonishing fact. The top 15 vote-getters for the 2020-21 Calder Trophy included representatives from nine different countries. The list included Russian winner Kirill Kaprizov of the Minnesota Wild and his countryman Shesterkin, as well as a Czech (Vitek Vanecek of the Washington Capitals), a German (Tim Stűtzle of the Ottawa Senators), a Swiss (Pius Suter of the Red Wings), a Swede (Nils Höglander of the Vancouver Canucks) and a Belarusian (Yegor Sharangovich of the New Jersey Devils), along with one Canadian, four Americans and three Finns. One of the Americans was Calder runner-up Jason Robertson, whose mother was born in the Philippines.

There are several other notable players from around the league who hail from lesser represented countries. The Los Angeles Kings feature veteran star Anze Kopitar from Slovenia as well as rookie Arthur Kaliyev, a U.S. citizen born in Uzbekistan. The Columbus Blue Jackets globe-trot with goaltender Elvis Merzlikins from Latvia and forward Alexandre Texier from France.  Then there’s Slovakia’s Zdeno Chara (New York Islanders), Norway’s Mats Zuccarello (Minnesota Wild), Kazakhstan’s Anton Khudobin (Dallas Stars), Bulgarian-Russian dual citizen Alexandar Georgiev (NY Rangers) and Leo Komarov of Estonia. And let’s not forget Nathan Walker of the St. Louis Blues, who arguably has the most unlikely background in the league, with his ancestry described as Welsh-Australian.

The incredible diversity of the NHL talent pool is a testament to the steady worldwide growth of the game of hockey, which has to be attributed at least in part to the NHL’s concerted effort to play both preseason and regular season games in European and Asian markets. Since the 1990s, the NHL has played more than 60 games in Europe, as well as six in Japan and four in China.

In addition to the NHL Global Series games, which pit NHL teams against each other in various overseas cities, NHL teams have also travelled to Europe to play against European teams in exhibition challenges. NHL teams have participated in games against teams such as Northern Ireland’s Belfast Giants, Russia’s SKA St. Petersburg, the Czech Republic’s HC Liberec, Latvia’s Dinamo Riga, Sweden’s MODO and Germany’s Adler Mannheim Eagles.

It’s likely no coincidence that players like Draisaitl, Seider and Stűtzle all spent time in the Mannheim Eagles development program, just like it’s no coincidence that Auston Matthews of Scottsdale, Arizona traces his roots in the game to watching the first seasons of the Phoenix (now Arizona) Coyotes. See it, love it, live it.

A game once dominated by Canadians is now a game shared by a multitude of players from a multitude of countries. The quality and creativity of the league’s players has never been better, and with such a broad player pool to draw from, that quality and creativity will likely just keep improving. Between-the-legs goals and lacrosse-style goals are already commonplace. What will be next?

As the league’s reach continues to grow, I hope the winners of the NHL playoffs continue to call themselves Stanley Cup Champions and not World Champions. It’s just more respectful to the other leagues that will continue to exist around the globe. That said, there is no disputing that NHL players are as world-class as it gets.