National Hockey League
Origin of players

In addition to Canadian- and American-born and trained players, who have historically composed a large majority of NHL rosters, the NHL also draws players from an expanding pool of other nations where organized and professional hockey is played. Since the collapse of the Soviet Bloc, political/ideological restrictions on the movement of hockey players from this region have disappeared, leading to a large influx of players mostly from the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Russia into the NHL. Swedes, Finns, and Western European players, who were always free to move to North America, came to the league in greater numbers than before.

Many of the league's top players in recent years have come from these European countries including Daniel Alfredsson, Erik Karlsson, Henrik Sedin, Daniel Sedin, Henrik Lundqvist, Jaromir Jagr, Patrik Elias, Zdeno Chara, Pavel Datsyuk, Evgeni Malkin, Nicklas Lidstrom, and Alexander Ovechkin. European players were drafted and signed by NHL teams in an effort to bring in more "skilled offensive players", although as of 2008 there has been a decline in European players as more American players enter the league. The addition of European players changed the style of play in the NHL and European style hockey has been integrated into the NHL game.

As of the 2017–18 season, the NHL has players from 17 countries, with 46.0% coming from Canada and 26.0% from the United States, while players from a further 15 countries make up 26.4% of NHL rosters. The following table shows the seven countries that make up the vast majority of NHL players. The table follows the Hockey Hall of Fame convention of classifying players by the currently existing countries in which their birthplaces are located, without regard to their citizenship or where they were trained.
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