Who is the best player of each country all time?

[VanIslander]

South Korea: Richard Park

 

[Sprague Cleghorn]

USA: Housley easily

Housley over Chelios, Leetch? Both those guys are way ahead of Housley.

Steve Thomas

I'd go with Charlie Gardiner for the UK. After all Gardiner is a HOFer and one of the best at his position of all time, while Thomas is not.

Australia: Tommy Dunderdale

 

[Xelebes]

Maybe you guys should stop eating so much Hákarl and start playing more hockey

Hakarl is eaten by Icelanders, not the Norse.

 

[Dissonance]

Three others that haven't been mentioned:

France: Cristobal Huet
Lithuania: Danius Zubrus
Kazakhstan: Nik Antropov (unless you want to count Evgeny Nabokov, who was born there, but tends to play for Russian teams)

 

[Hammer Time]

Canada - Gretzky
Sweden - Lidstrom
USA - Chelios
Czech Rep - Hasek
Finland - Selanne
Slovakia - Stastny (soon it will be Chara)
Russia - Makarov (soon it will be Ovechkin)

Germany - Kolzig
Latvia - Balderis
Belarus - Salei
Switzerland - Streit
Austria - Vanek
Slovenia - Kopitar
Norway - Thoresen

 

[Killion]

Belgium - Jan Benda
Brazil - Robyn Regher
Brunei - Craig Adams
Haiti - Claude Vilgrain
Indonesia - Richie Regher
Lebanon - Ed Hatoum
Nigeria - Akim Aliu
Paraguay - Willi Plett
Tanzania - Chris Nielsen
Venezuela - Rick Chartraw

 

[double5son10]

Belgium - Jan Benda
Brazil - Robyn Regher
Brunei - Craig Adams
Haiti - Claude Vilgrain
Indonesia - Richie Regher
Lebanon - Ed Hatoum
Nigeria - Akim Aliu
Paraguay - Willi Plett
Tanzania - Chris Nielsen
Venezuela - Rick Chartraw

great list! add,

Taiwan - Rod Langway

 

[robwangjing]

China: Dahai Wang in the future I believe most in Jiachang Bao
South Korea: Woo Jae Kim or Ki Sung Kim (or does Richard Park count?)

 

[ziggo66]

Please stop posting crazy names like Kölzig or even Goc (which of the three???) for Germany. Sturm was good, Krupp was great, but Germany's best ever is hands down Eric Kühnhackl. No doubt about it. You know, the guy actually lead the 1978 world championships in scoring, ahead of the mighty Makarovs, Petrovs etc.

 

[VMBM]

This is not very great list at all. If you believe that the soviet national team was about as good in the seventies as in the eighties, one cant pick Kharlamov becouse Makarov was much more in a class by himself amongst his fellow forwards than Kharlamov was.

I think Makarov was in a class by himself in Soviet league/CSKA rather than in the national team. In international competition, Krutov was often pretty close - and sometimes better - especially in the mid/late-1980s.

My own favourites (not necessarily the best) from 'every' country:

Finland

Pertti Koivulahti
Matti Hagman
Teemu Selänne
Veli-Pekka Ketola

Russia

Boris Mikhailov
Valeri Kharlamov
Sergei Kapustin
Viacheslav Bykov

Canada

Gilbert Perreault
Mike Bossy
Larry Robinson
Jean Ratelle

Czech

Vladimir Martinec
Ivan Hlinka
Jiri Lala
Frantisek Pospisil

Sweden

Pelle Lindbergh
Mats Waltin
Sven Tumba
Mats Näslund

Slovakia

Dusan Pasek
Vladimir Dzurilla
Zdeno Chara
Peter Stastny

USA

Ken Morrow
Neal Broten
Brian Leetch

Germany

Erich Kühnhackl (duh)
Udo Kiessling

Latvia

Helmuts Balderis
Arturs Irbe

I'll stop now.

 

[Calirose]

Slovenia: Kopitar

 

[Calirose]

Three others that haven't been mentioned:

France: Cristobal Huet
Lithuania: Danius Zubrus
Kazakhstan: Nik Antropov (unless you want to count Evgeny Nabokov, who was born there, but tends to play for Russian teams)

Its funny that many of the best french players are from the tiny island territories of St. Pierre and Miquelon, which is actually just off the coast of Canada.

 

[feffan]

Knutsen was better than Thoresen... and for good checker, I dont know.. He ended his career by checking the boards with his head

Agreed that Knutsen was better. Injuries and that tragic shoot in 2002 that killed the girl in the stands derailed his career. He was so to say "a bad center to have as your first, but a great second line center". His 53 point season is what he should be judged off, as it is the only "true" season he played in the NHL. If the KHL was an option back then, I believe he and his playingstyle would have been better suited there and that he would have better numbers than Thoresen.

 

[Botta]

Belarus: Andrei Kostitsyn
Brazil: Robyn Regehr (if that counts)
France: Paul MacLean
Denmak: this is a battle, but right now: Frans Nielsen (Eller or Boedker could change it in time)
Haiti: Claude Vilgrain
Ireland: Jim McFadden
Netherlands: Ed Kea
South Korea: Richard Park
Switzerland: Mark Streit (Roman Josi will be considered better, if he's not already)
U.K.: Steve Thomas
Norway: Patrick Thoresen (Knutsen played more NHL games (so far) but Thoresen is clearly the more skilled player)

What's with Norway and the lack of hockey players, anyway?

I suppose many norwegians will say that Bjoern Skaare and Espen Knutsen are superior to Patrick Thoresen
Hockey is neglected in Norway. The funding for hockey is non-existent. We build on average one rink every year.We have 44 of them. Most people consider the sport violent, because that`s mainly what the media show us. Little about talents, the game etc, a lot about bad checks, fighting and so on. Ask a norwegian about hockey and most(?) of them will tell you it is most about fighting or violence. The big sports in Norway are the small sports on the international stage.(football is an exception) The reason I suppose is that we like to win(we also) So why choose the big sports where we can`t win the Olympic gold medals, when we can dominate in the small ones and have lots of medals.One hockey gold count as one in the medal table, but we can win at least 10 gold medals in cross country skiing.Looks better with 10 gold medals than 1 right? So we spend lots of money on skijumping hills and so on and nothing on hockey.Sad isn`t it?

 

[sr edler]

USA: Housley easily

I like the easily part.

Leetch, Chelios, Modano, LaFontaine, Howe, Brimsek... Joe Mullen, Richter, Roenick, LeClair, Tkachuk, Broten, Gary Suter, Vanbiesbrouck, Patrick Kane, Tim Thomas... Housley is somewhere in that latter group.

Though I recall Knutsen being a pretty good checker

You mean checker as in "grinder" or as in good "forechecker"? Knutsen wasn't a grinder at all but a finesse player and a very good playmaker, at least when he played in the SEL where he had a few great seasons by SEL standard. I don't think his game was very well suited for the NHL though, as I don't remember him as a physical player at all. He was probably better on more open ice.

So Barkov is also Russian?

I realize he's born and trained in Finland but he's got russian parents and dual citizenship no? That definitely makes him more russian than Heatley is german.

 

[Johnny Engine]

Its funny that many of the best french players are from the tiny island territories of St. Pierre and Miquelon, which is actually just off the coast of Canada.

Not a single player in NHL history has been born in St. Pierre, Miquelon, or Langlade, and from what I can tell, their youth hockey teams generally get the tar beaten out of them when they visit similar-sized towns in Newfoundland. So unless you mean "has more hockey players per capita than France as a whole"...

 

[Sanf]

My opinion for few not yet mentioned.

Romania: Doru Tureanu. Best of the Romanian golden generation. Made impression to Tikhonov. "Tureanu could play in any professional team in the world" or something like that. Romanian national team played in several tournaments in Soviet Union in 70´s so Tikhonov might have seen him more than once or twice.

Hungary: Sandor Miklos. One of the best players in Europe in 30´s. HM to Istvan Hircsak who was maybe the best goalie in Europe in 30´s before Bohumil Modry. (yeah I know many don´t like the choice of Europeans from that far from history)

Italy: Lucio Topatigh. There are some names from the past who could compete and many Italian Canadians but Topatigh was Italian born and trained. Respected player in WHCs of 90´s.

 

[GB]

I think I'd pick Carl Erhardt over Tony Hand personally. Archie Stinchcombe and Jimmy Foster are favourites of mine too.

 

[Ivo]

Canada - Gretzky
USA - Chelios
Sweden - Lidstrom (Forsberg is close, if not for his injuries, probably he would be no. 1)
Finland - Selanne
Czech - Hasek (however, 99% of Czechs will say Jagr)
Slovakia - Chara (this is a tough one. Until recently it was Peter Stastny by a wide margin, but Chara has been arguably the best D-man in the league during the last ~5 years and had more playoff success in the last three years than Stastny during his whole career. Still it is very close and you cannot go wrong with either of them. Best Slovak born player was Stan Mikita, but as a hockey player he has to be considered Canadian)
Russia - Ovechkin (Admittedly, I don't know enough about the older non-nhl guys to properly rank them. From the players that I have watched playing in the NHL and internationally in the last 20 years I pick Ovechkin)

 

[Killion]

Ed (Adriaan Jozef) Kea - Netherlands

Born in Weesp (1948) Holland but at 4 moved to Collingwood Ontario Canada with his family. Played for Atlanta & St.Louis from 74-83. Tragic accident while playing for Salt Lake in the minors ended his career when he crashed head first into the boards causing brain damage. Big guy at like 6'3" & 190+ lbs.

 

[Harry Waters]

I wrote that before, but: could people with obviously zero knowledge of some contries' hockey history please stop posting about it? In this case: Germany. As 'nuernberger' said, the answer is Kühnhackl, and that is not really debatable.

Sturm, Hecht, Krupp or Goc have absolutely no business of being part of this thread. It just takes one minute to google german hockey history and you would never come up with those names. If you can't do and have never done that, why just throw those names out? I honestly think you would be laughed at if you would try to argue over here that they are in the discussion for best german player ever. That is like arguing Sakic is the best Canadian ever. And no, that comparison is no hyperbole.

Edit: And what ziggo66 said.

 

[Sentinel]

In items of contention:

USA -- Chelios
Finland -- Selanne
Czechia -- Dom
Russia -- Makarov
Sweden -- Lids
Latvia -- Irbe


I'd claim that a person on such a list would actually have to do something for their country, which effectively eliminates Ovechkin.

 

[Sentinel]

Russia - Makarov (soon it will be Ovechkin)

Never. Book it.

 

[Sanf]

I think I'd pick Carl Erhardt over Tony Hand personally. Archie Stinchcombe and Jimmy Foster are favourites of mine too.

Foster was definitely the best goalie in Europe in late 30´s, but he wasn´t really a product of European hockey. Hero of the 36 Olympics,two time Allan Cup winner, three time European champion.

Got actually an offer from Montreal Maroons late in 34-35 season but passed it and went to play to Britain. After the Olympics he negotiated with Maple Leafs but declined the one-year contract offer. One of the best goalies outside NHL at that time for sure.

 

[GB]

Foster was definitely the best goalie in Europe in late 30´s, but he wasn´t really a product of European hockey. Hero of the 36 Olympics,two time Allan Cup winner, three time European champion.

Got actually an offer from Montreal Maroons late in 34-35 season but passed it and went to play to Britain. After the Olympics he negotiated with Maple Leafs but declined the one-year contract offer. One of the best goalies outside NHL at that time for sure.

I think Foster was pretty clearly the best member of that squad but in terms of best British player I couldn't rank him over Erhardt. I think he's pretty generally unknown/under-rated, I had him as one of my picks in the first All Time Draft, I don't think he's even been picked in a Minor League Draft since then.

Gerry Heffernan suggests that by going to Britain rather than stay in North America he ended up financially better off than the rest of his Allen Cup winning team-mates. Art Child, Foster's back-up at the Olympics, suggests something similar. I'd have to go digging through my books to get the exact references and I don't have time now