One of the things I'm experimenting with in the NHLX series is having more players represent their secondary nationality or heritage in national teams. Particularly players from powerful national team pools like Canada and the U.S. We've seen some of this with North American player being nationalized in places like Germany and Kazakhstan after long playing stints in those other countires as well as China trying to create a larger player pool with Chinese-heritage North American players. But I'm going to take it a step further with the idea of A) creating more interesting national team pools and B) creating a base for stronger CPU-generation of a wider scope of nationalities in the future.
Japan is a very interesting one because they pick up some serious talent. The Suzuki siblings, the Yamamoto's, the Sikura's...some interesting prospect like Jordan Spence, etc. Of course IRL, Nick Suzuki is going to be good enough to represent Canada...likewise Kailer for the USA and Spence just was on the Canadian WJC team. So obviously this is not intended to be true to life - just to add another wrinkle to this database.
Here's some of the better players Japan can add to their pool right off the bat:
Dylan Sikura - Nick Suzuki - Kailer Yamamoto
Taro Hirose - Ryan Suzuki - Kiefer Sherwood
Tyler Sikura - Jon Matsumoto - Kole Sherwood
Stuart Percy - Jordan Spence
I havne't decided what to do with guys like the Robertson brothers who have Filipino heritage but the Philipinnes are not even a hockey playing nation in the database right now.
