The Puck Stops Here
Lack Of American Top Scorers
by PuckStopsHere on 01/26/09 at 06:46 AM ET
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During last season, I wrote about the lack of American top scorers in a couple different posts and I wanted to re-address the situation this season.
Here are the top 10 American born scorers in the NHL and where they rank in the overall NHL race as of All Star break:
Player | Team | Games | Goals | Assists | Points | Position in Overall Race |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Zach Parise | NJD | 47 | 28 | 27 | 55 | 7th |
| Patrick Kane | Chi | 43 | 16 | 26 | 42 | 34th |
| Phil Kessel | Bos | 42 | 24 | 17 | 41 | 36th |
| Brian Gionta | NJD | 46 | 11 | 27 | 38 | 47th |
| Brian Rafalski | Det | 46 | 7 | 28 | 35 | 64th |
| Jamie Langenbrunner | NJD | 46 | 8 | 26 | 34 | 69th |
| Dustin Brown | LAK | 46 | 17 | 16 | 33 | 72nd |
| Bill Guerin | NYI | 47 | 14 | 18 | 32 | 79th |
| Joe Pavelski | SJS | 43 | 13 | 19 | 32 | 80th |
| Scott Gomez | NYR | 43 | 9 | 23 | 32 | 85th |
In order to find the top 10 American born players we have to scroll to 85th in the overall league scoring. There are 176 American born players (non-goalies) in the NHL who have played one or more games this season out of 808 players in the overall league. That means 21.8% of position players in the NHL this season have been American born. If we assume that they were randomly spread throughout the scoring race, most likely ten American-born players would be found after scrolling through 46 players in the overall scoring race. Only three Americans are found by that point (Parise, Kane and Kessel - although Brian Gionta is 47th). That clearly shows a problem. American born players are missing from the top.
To get an idea of how things have changed, we can look at the similar data from last season’s final scoring standings. Here it is:
Player | Team | Games | Goals | Assists | Points | Position in Overall Race |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Patrick Kane | Chi | 82 | 21 | 51 | 72 | 32nd |
| Scott Gomez | NYR | 81 | 16 | 54 | 70 | 38th |
| Zach Parise | NJD | 81 | 32 | 33 | 65 | 47th |
| Dustin Brown | LAK | 78 | 33 | 27 | 60 | 62nd |
| Brian Rolston | Min | 81 | 31 | 28 | 59 | 64th |
| Keith Tkachuk | StL | 79 | 27 | 31 | 58 | 66th |
| Chris Drury | NYR | 82 | 25 | 33 | 58 | 68th |
| Mike Modano | Dal | 82 | 21 | 36 | 57 | 72nd |
| Brian Rafalski | Det | 73 | 13 | 42 | 55 | 82nd |
| Peter Mueller | Phx | 81 | 22 | 31 | 53 | 86th |
By comparing the two tables, we see that it while last year took 86 players in the overall scoring race to include 10 American born players, this year it takes 85. That number is essentially unchanged. At the top, Zach Parise is 7th in league scoring. That is a big improvement from last year when the top American born player was Patrick Kane in 32nd. That is a single player achievement. Parise has improved. It is not a systematic change. The top 10 overall is about the same in both seasons.
We see that five players (Parise, Kane, Rafalski, Brown and Gomez) made the list both seasons, while the other five spots change from year to year. Interestingly, since it is All Star break, we see that Keith Tkachuk, Mike Modano and Dustin Brown all made the All Star Game this year despite dropping in their rank in the scoring race. That is an interesting showing about the quality of All Star Game selections.
Americans are making up an ever increasing amount of the players in the NHL. However, they are not taking their places among the top scorers. Why is this? It is a problem for American hockey.
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