WC: What Euro-league players consistently outperform NHL'ers?

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tarheelhockey

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What players from European leagues consistently have better World Championship tournaments than their NHL counterparts? Ideally players who don't just have good stats from playing weak countries, but those who actually go head-to-head with top opponents and look good.

By "consistently", I mean 3 times or more.
 

Qurpiz

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Jarkko Immonen (this tournament notwithstanding)
Niko Kapanen
That one line from Russia that play together in KHL
 

SPMaximus

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Petri Vehanen was pretty awesome last year

if he were younger i think he could be an NHL starter

and hes been solid so far this year, even if he hasnt been as tested yet
 
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slovakiasnextone

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Jul 7, 2008
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Depends how you look at it, if everyone was better then hedman which they were you could just name any non-nhl player you want:laugh:

The OP was asking about Euro players who were better than NHLers consistently for a longer period of time, around at least 3 years. How can you determine such players by comparing them to a guy who has played only his 2nd WC as an NHLer (and AFAIK he wasn´t that bad in his first one)
 

ThrashersfanSVK

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Jörgen Jönsson and Jiří Dopita used to be considered as the best players outside the NHL.

When Dopita came to the NHL, he was a disappointment (even though he scored 4 goals to Atlanta, well, yeah, but if I take into account that 4 goals in one game scored also Pascal Rheaume, I have to think about difficulty of this task...)
 

Phil McKraken

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Both Kenny and Jörgen Jönsson were consistenly elite in international tournaments, both before and after playing in the NHL.
 

TollefsenFan

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What players from European leagues consistently have better World Championship tournaments than their NHL counterparts? Ideally players who don't just have good stats from playing weak countries, but those who actually go head-to-head with top opponents and look good.

By "consistently", I mean 3 times or more.

Patrick Thoresen.

5 assists in 4 games in the Vancouver olympics.

The topscorer after the first 3 games in 2010 whc (with 6 points in 3 games vs Sweden, Czech rep and France. Two points in each game. He was the topscorer after the preliminary rounds if im not mistaken.)

And the topscorer so far in this whc (18 points. 2 points in the QF vs Russia, 1 point vs the czech rep and 1 point vs Russia).

Edit: I also wanna ad that Thoresen is good defensively. Its not only about scoring, but also about helping the defence. And he always does a very good job in his own zone (blocking shots, working hard along the boards etc).
 
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Peter25

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Krutov, Larionov, Makarov, Fetisov, Kasatonov.

They won most of the WC's in the 1980's and also won all three Canada Cups in 1981, 1984 and 1987.
 

FiLe

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At least what comes to the members of the elite, we could say pretty much any non-NHLer who has represented his country for three tournaments or more.
 

Peter25

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From current players:

Cervenka, Nikulin, Perezhogin, Immonen, Mårtensson, Thoresen, Weinhandl, Komarov, Nemec, Kuznetsov, Kontiola, Väänänen, Medvedev, Dallman... basically the elite players from the KHL and few from other Euro leagues.
 

TollefsenFan

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Alexei Kalyuzhny is a name that comes immediately to my mind. Morten Ask is another one that always performs well.

Not Morten Ask. He is not good enough, but he plays well vs weaker teams. And he is usefull on PK. But i wouldnt compare him to NHL players.
 
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