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toby91_ca

Penguins most North American Team out there?

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So, I stumbled upon this by accident. Not sure what I was doing, but I was viewing the salaries, etc. for various rosters and I happened to be on the Pens roster (probably the 8th or 9th team I looked at) when I was scrolling down the names with my cursor to count the players. I noticed a little box pop up that gives some info on the players (#, nationality, etc.). Anyway, I noticed a lot of Cdn Flags.

As I said, the Pens were probably the 8th or 9th team I looked at, but I tend to look at many different things at the same time or jump to topic vs. topic, so this was really the first roster I looked at from a Nationality perspective. But based on the below, I'm not sure I'd need to look at any others as I'd have a hard time believing that any other team out there would be more North American.

Forwards - 12 Canadian, 1 Russian

Defensemen - 6 American, 2 Canadian, 1 Czech

Goalies - 1 Canadian, 1 American

91% North American

Okay, I lied, I also looked at the Wings roster, not because I thought they were even close to as many North Americans, but because I thought there was as chance they could have more Europeans than most other teams (I haven't gone and checked other rosters though).

Forwards - 6 Europeans, 3 Canadians, 3 Americans

Defensemen - 4 Europeans, 3 Canadians

Goalies - 2 Americans

48% European (I was actually expecting it to be higher)

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I don't think it's as much of a factor now as it maybe used to be. I doubt there are many GM's out there who wouldn't take the best player available if it came down to a North American player or European player (With the exception of Brian Burke.)

But it seems to me that European players are more and more often adapting their style of play to the North American game. Just the two stats of the Wings' roster and the Penguins' roster should prove that. Two of the most recently successful teams and two quite substantially different percentages.

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I don't think it's as much of a factor now as it maybe used to be. I doubt there are many GM's out there who wouldn't take the best player available if it came down to a North American player or European player (With the exception of Brian Burke.)

But it seems to me that European players are more and more often adapting their style of play to the North American game. Just the two stats of the Wings' roster and the Penguins' roster should prove that. Two of the most recently successful teams and two quite substantially different percentages.

You are correct, I don't think it is a matter of GMs targeting certain players as much as it is a fluke really. I do think that Detroit employs a lot more scouts for Europe than a lot of teams though, so that may explain some of it.

I don't know the Pens organization well enough to understand their philosophy, etc., but you are also right on Burke, he appears to go after the North Americans for the most part.

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I don't know any statistics or anything but I wonder if this also has something to do with draft position. I'd imagine north American players are far easier to scout so gms might take them over a euro they might not have seen play. Since the wings draft at the end of the round, the best players available now might be european because the north American players that were scouted more were drafted. Just a hypothesis.

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