This series will shine a light on the most unusual NHL players — the guys who stand out from their peers in one way or another fashion. Part 2 looks at players who have no fellow countrymen in the league.
Previous article: Size
While the NHL has fans scattered around the globe, the game of ice hockey is only played at a high level in a few places. That results in a player pool drawn almost exclusively from North America, and certain areas in northern and central Europe.
Even so, there’s still room for players from nontraditional hockey markets to play the game at its highest level.
The players highlighted below are guys who are from a country that has produced just one current NHL player, meaning they appeared during the 2022-23 season and are under contract for 2023-2024.
Spence had a fascinating route to the NHL that involved living in not one, but two countries where the game is low on the hierarchy of sports. The product of a Canadian father and Japanese mother, the defenceman began his life in Manly — a suburb of Sydney — and moved to Osaka, Japan early in childhood.
After playing both hockey and baseball in Japan, his family moved again when he was 13 — this time to Cornwall, P.E.I. From there his hockey career progressed as he learned English on the fly.
When he got passed up in the 2017 QMJHL draft, he had to play in the Maritime Hockey League for a year. A strong MHL showing got him the Q, where his productive rookie year got him drafted 95th overall in the 2019 NHL Draft.
Spence is still proving himself at the game’s highest level, with just 30 NHL games under his belt, but he’s shown a knack for moving the puck in the AHL with 79 assists in 102 games over two seasons.
The 22-year-old is more of a poster child for hockey in Japan than Australia as a dual Canadian-Japanese citizen who began playing there — but he has a chance to be part of growing the game in the country of his birth later this year.
On September 23 and 24, the Kings are playing two preseason games against the Arizona Coyotes in Melbourne for the 2023 NHL Global Series. Spence is likely to be a prominently featured part of that event, even if the country wasn’t a big part of his NHL journey.
Spence is the first Australian-born player to reach the league, but he has a Aussie compatriot in Nathan Walker of the St. Louis Blues. Walker was born in Wales, but moved to Australia at the age of two and learned the game there.
The 29-year-old has appeared in 111 NHL games over six NHL seasons. He set a career high with 56 games played in 2022-23 and won a Stanley Cup with the Washington Capitals in 2018.
Like Spence, Georgiev is the only player born in his country of origin to ever appear in an NHL game. Unlike Spence, he came to the NHL via a relatively conventional route.
Georgiev’s family moved to Russia at an early age. He eventually attended a goaltending school in Finland, where he began his professional career.
While the 27-year-old’s path didn’t ultimately have much to do with his birthplace, it deserves to be highlighted and celebrated as Georgiev is one of the NHL’s better underdog stories.
The netminder went undrafted in the 2017 NHL Draft and broke through in North America thanks to an impressive showing at the New York Rangers’ developmental camp. That led to entry-level contract and he made his NHL debut less than two weeks after his 22nd birthday.
Georgiev was never able to fully lock down the Rangers’ crease in five years with New York and finally got a chance as a full-time starter for the first time last year. That resulted in a stellar season with the Colorado Avalanche.
It’s not unheard of for an undrafted goaltender to find success in the NHL, but Georgiev was one of just three to start more than half of his team’s games in 2022-23 — joining Sergei Bobrovsky and Martin Jones.
Sprong is another player who left his homeland at a relatively young age, but he left because of his dreams of playing in the NHL. His father Hannie — who had played the sport at a professional level in Holland — supported his son’s ambitions and moved the family to Quebec when Sprong was seven years old.
From there, the winger took the conventional route to the NHL, getting drafted 46th overall after a strong QMJHL season with the Charlottetown Islanders.
At the NHL level, Sprong’s claim to fame has been scoring efficiency. The 26-year-old averaged just 11:25 in ice time last season, but managed to score 21 goals for the Seattle Kraken.
Since 2018-19, his goals/60 at 5-on-5 (1.20) ranks ninth in the NHL among 510 players who’ve played at least 200 games. The Red Wings are the fifth franchise Sprong has joined since his NHL career began, and it will be intriguing to see if he can carve out a bigger role in Detroit.
While Sprong is the lone Dutchman in the NHL, he’s the third player born in the Netherlands to appear in the league. The last NHLer from Holland was Ed Beers — an excellent offensive player whose career came to a premature end after the 1985-86 season due to injuries.
Although Norway has a similar population (5.47 million) to Finland (5.55 million) and Denmark (5.91 million), it never produced NHL players at a similar clip.
Zuccarello is only the eighth Norwegian NHLer and he has more games played (766) and points (573) than the other seven combined (698 and 181).
Unlike some of the players on this list, Zuccarello learned his craft at home, joining Norway’s top hockey league at the age of 18 and playing there for three years before moving to Sweden for two more seasons.
He ultimately signed a two-way contract with the New York Rangers after posting 64 points in 54 games for Modo at the age of 22. After a couple of years of bouncing up and down between the AHL and NHL — plus a jaunt to the KHL during the 2012 lockout — Zuccarello landed a full-time role with the Rangers in 2013-14.
The rest is history, as he put up 59 points that season. His 364 assists since then rank 33rd in the NHL, between Joe Pavelski and Steven Stamkos.
Slovenian – Anže Kopitar, C, Los Angeles Kings
When it comes to elite athletes, Slovenia punches well above its weight with superstars like Luka Dončić in the NBA and cyclists Tadej Pogačar and Primož Roglič, but Kopitar was the first NHL player the country ever produced.
He dominated the competition in his home nation to an astounding degree as a teenager, catching the eye of a Swedish scout who offered him the chance to play for Södertälje SK’s junior team. From there, he continued to dominate, becoming a hot-shot prospect who NHL Central Scouting ranked first among European skaters entering the 2005 draft.
Kopitar was drafted 11th overall by the Kings and became a foundational player who helped drive the team to multiple championships. As a two-time Selke Trophy winner with 1,141 points and counting, he’s building a strong Hall of Fame case — and he remained effective as a 35-year-old last season.
While Kopitar blazed a trail for fellow Slovenians, just two have been selected in the NHL Draft since he was picked. One of those two reached the NHL, though, as Jan Muršak became the league’s second Slovenian-born player in 2010.
Uzbekistan – Arthur Kaliyev, RW, Los Angeles Kings
Kaliyev’s story is similar to Georgiev’s. Although he is the only player born in Uzbekistan to crack the NHL, that nation wasn’t impactful to his hockey journey.
He moved to New York when he was two years old, then on to Michigan in his teens, and has represented the United States at the World Juniors. He became a top prospect thanks to his work for the Hamilton Bulldogs of the OHL when he went north of the border to seek out top competition at the major junior level.
A combination of size and skill made Kaliyev the second pick of the second round in 2019 (33rd overall), and over the last two seasons he’s established himself as a solid NHLer with potential to grow into a larger role.
His 2022-23 campaign was his strongest to date, as he produced half a point per game despite skating just 11:41 per night.
The 22-year-old career could go in a number of directions from here, but whatever happens, the fact he’s the NHL’s only Uzbekistani-born player will always be a minor claim to fame.
