What Percent of NHL Players Are American?

The National Hockey League (NHL) is a professional ice hockey league. There are currently 31 teams in the NHL, with 24 in the United States and 7 in Canada. The league is made up of players from all over the world, but what percentage of NHL players are American?

NHL Players by Country

The National Hockey League is made up of players from all over the world. As of the 2019-2020 season, the NHL is made up of 31% Canadian players, 24% American players, 19% Swedish players, 10% Finnish players, 5% German players, and 4% Russian players.

Canada

In the National Hockey League, Canadian players make up a significant portion of the league. In the 2019-2020 season, 50.9 percent of NHL players were Canadian. This is down from 51.6 percent in the 2017-2018 season, but still a majority. The number of Canadian players has been slowly declining over the years, but they still make up the largest group by country.

The United States is second with 23.9 percent of players being American in the 2019-2020 season. This is up from 23.3 percent in the 2017-2018 season. The number of American players has been slowly increasing over the years and has been steady around 24 percent for a few seasons now.

European countries make up most of the rest of the NHL with 25 percent of players coming from Europe (excluding Russia). This number has been slowly declining over the years as well, down from 27.1 percent in the 2017-2018 season. Countries like Sweden, Finland, and Czech Republic have seen a decrease in NHL representation in recent years while others like Germany and Switzerland have seen an increase

United States

As of the 2019-20 NHL season, there are 43.8% of NHL players that come from the United States. This is a significant increase from the last few years where Canadian players made up the majority of the league. This is due in part to the fact that more and more American players are being drafted in recent years.

Russia

As of the 2019-2020 NHL season, there are 42 players from Russia playing in the NHL. This is the second-highest number of any country, behind only Canada.

Russians make up 10% of all NHL players, and this number has been relatively stable over the last few years. In fact, the percentage of Russian NHL players has been steadily increasing since the early 2000s.

Some of the most famous Russian players in the NHL today include Alexander Ovechkin, Evgeni Malkin, Sergei Bobrovsky, and Vladislav Namestnikov.

Sweden

Sweden has been one of the top producing countries of NHL talent over the last few decades. Players like Henrik Lundqvist, Daniel Sedin, and Henrik Zetterberg have become household names and some of the best to ever play the game. In fact, as of the 2019-2020 NHL season, there were 43 Swedish players on NHL rosters, accounting for nearly 8% of the league.

NHL Players by Position

The National Hockey League (NHL) is a professional ice hockey league. As of the 2017–18 season, 26 of the 31 teams in the NHL are based in the United States. In the 2018 Stanley Cup playoffs, all but two of the 16 teams were based in the United States.

Forwards

en in the NHL are from Canada, while 24% are from the United States. The remaining 5% of players come from other countries, such as Russia, Sweden, and Finland.

The most common position for an NHL player is a forward. There are three different types of forwards – left wing, right wing, and center. The percentages of NHL players by position are as follows:

Left wing: 19%
Right wing: 18%
Center: 17%

Defensemen make up the second most common position in the NHL, with 23% of players being defensemen. The remaining 5% of players are goalies.

Defensemen

In the National Hockey League, there are three designations for forwards: centers, left wingers and right wingers. Right wingers are considered the goal scorers on a team, while left wingers tend to play a more physical game. Centers are responsible for both scoring goals and defensive play.

Of the NHL’s 30 teams, each has six defensemen on their roster. That’s a total of 180 defensemen in the NHL. So, what percentage of NHL defensemen are American?

The answer is 29 percent. There are 52 American defensemen in the NHL. The rest are Canadian (66), Swedish (9), Finnish (8), Russian (7), Czech (4) and other nationality (2).

Goaltenders

Between the pipes, 35.5 percent of NHL goaltenders are American-born. The U.S. has produced much more NHL goaltenders relative to its population than any other country, per nhl.com’s John Kreiser.

NHL Players by Age

The National Hockey League (NHL) is a professional ice hockey league composed of 30 member clubs: 23 in the United States and 7 in Canada. Of the 30 clubs, 16 have won the Stanley Cup, the league’s championship trophy. The Stanley Cup, originally named the Dominion Hockey Challenge Cup, was first awarded in 1893 to Montreal Hockey Club, and is named after Lord Stanley of Preston, the Governor General of Canada at the time.

18 and under

In the National Hockey League (NHL), the ages of the players range from 18 to over 40 years old. The average NHL player is 28.5 years old. Check out the chart below to see what percent of NHL players are in each age group.

18 and under: 1 percent
19-20: 4 percent
21-24: 15 percent
25-29: 36 percent
30-34: 25 percent
35 and over: 9 percent

19-24

Of the NHL’s approximately 700 current players, 30% (210) are aged 19–24, while 26% (183) are aged 25–29. 22% (151) are in their 30s, and the remaining 22% (155) are aged 32 and older. 63% of NHL players were born in Canada, while 27% were born in the United States.

25-30

As of the 2017-2018 season, 25-30 year olds made up 26.1% of NHL players. Of those players, 58.7% were Canadian, followed by the United States at 27.4%. Other countries represented in this age group include: Russia (6%), Sweden (3%), Czech Republic (2%), Finland (1%), Slovakia (1%), and Switzerland (1%).

31 and over

As the NHL season gets underway, there are a few things we can say for certain about the league. For one, it’s getting younger. The average age of an NHL player is 28.2 years old, down from 28.6 last season, and the lowest it’s been since the league began tracking age data in 1987.

But while the league as a whole is getting younger, there’s still a significant contingent of older players. In fact, nearly a quarter of NHL players are 31 or older (24.2 percent), and they account for more than a third of the league’s total points (34.4 percent).

So which teams have the oldest rosters? unsurprisingly, it’s the perennial contenders who are loading up on veterans in an attempt to win now. The Chicago Blackhawks, for example, have an average age of 29.4 years old, the oldest in the league. They’re followed by the Pittsburgh Penguins (29.2), Los Angeles Kings (28.9), and Tampa Bay Lightning (28.8).

At the other end of the spectrum are the teams that are taking a longer-term approach and rebuilding with younger rosters. The Arizona Coyotes have the youngest team in the NHL, with an average age of 25.8 years old. They’re followed by the Buffalo Sabres (26.1), Calgary Flames (26.4), and Edmonton Oilers (26.5).