Top 5 Greatest International National Hockey League Players
Five of the best international NHL players
There is no doubt that in the last 40 years, the National Hockey League has had a high turnover of hockey players from outside the United States.
For those players that are in the US, most of them seem to be from the Northeast or Midwest.
However, in this article we are specifically going to focus on five famous international players from the NHL.
More specifically, we will discuss Sidney Crosby (Canada), Alexander Ovechkin (Russia), Zedeno Chara (Slovakia), Jaromir Jagr (Czechoslavakia) and Mark Messier (Canada).
1. Mark Messier
Mark Messier is the last player to permanently transition from the WHA- and it’s not like he had a lack of competition before transferring over.
The league contained players such as Gary Cheevers and Gordie Howe. For those not familiar, the WHA is about the equivalent to what the ABA was before the two leagues merged in basketball.
In addition to playing against stiff competition, he also got to play with great competition.
The first player that comes to mind is “The Great One” aka Wayne Gretzky, as Messier played for the Oilers in the early 1980s.
In addition to playing for the Oilers, he also played for the New York Rangers, where he was nicknamed “The Messiah of Madison Square Garden” and the Vancouver Canucks.
His career is one of the longest in pro sports of his era. It lasted 26 seasons, after he finally retired in 2004.
2. Jaromir Jagr
Much like Messier, Jaromir Jagr played for over 20 seasons.
As a matter of fact, he didn’t retire until he was 45. He achieved the greatest number of points during the season on five different occasions, including a span of three consecutive years from 1997-1998 up to the 2000-2001 seasons.
In addition to winning two Stanley Cups, Yagr also won the Ross trophy five times, the hart trophy during the 1998-1999 season, the Masterson trophy in 2015-2016 and an eight-time all-star.
Plus, he also played with Penguin great Mario Lemieux during the 1996-1997 season.
3. Zedeno Chara
Zedeno Chara retired this past year approaching the 2022-2023 season.
He spent the bulk of his career with the Bruins, but he also spent a couple of years with another original six team in the Toronto Maple Leafs.
As a player, Chara had one unique advantage that isn’t often seen in the NHL today. He was unusually tall!
As a matter of fact, he is three inches taller than your average NBA basketball player.
His 6’9, 250-pound stature often made an intimidating presence, and he knew when to put it to good use- and not just in the uses that you might think.
In addition to being able to deliver bone-jarring hits, Chara also had one of the fastest slap shots in the NHL.
He actually won “hardest shot” in the skills competition five times, with shots that span between 100.4 and almost 109 miles per hour.
During those five times, he won it three years in a row between 2007 and 2009 and then picked it up again just a year later in 2011. He then won his last one in 2012.
As for accolades, Chara won one Stanley Cup, was a seven time all-star, won the Norris Trophy in 2008-2009 and the Messier Trophy during the 2010-2011 season.
Chara’s total career spanned 24 years, 14 of which were spent with the Boston Bruins. He also played for the Washington Capitals, New York Islanders and Ottowa Senators.
4. Alexander Ovechkin
One thing that is unique to Alexander Ovechkin, compared to all of the other players on this list, is that he spent his entire career with one team- the Washington Capitals.
This rarely happens in any professional sport anymore. Ovechkin, whose idol was Mario Lemieux, wasn’t even a legal adult before he discovered he was exceptionally gifted in hockey.
In an 18 and under league, he put 14 shots in the back of the net in just eight games.
Ovechkin also had a higher degree of stamina than a lot of other players, as he played in at least 77 games in all but three years of his NHL career to date.
So far, Ovechkin has ruled over the NHL for 17 years. While Ovechkin is still playing, he already has a decorated NHL career which includes a Stanley Cup, the Ross Trophy (2007-2008), 3-time Pearson Award Winner, three-time Hart Trophy and he is also a 12-time all-star.
5. Sidney Crosby
There is no doubt that when Sidney Crosby, who is famously known as “Sid the Kid”, retires he will be considered one of the greatest of all time.
For those who follow Penguins history, he may be considered the heir apparent to Mario Lemieux for his superior goal-scoring ability.
If you’re trying to figure out when that was, Crosby’s rookie year was the year that Lemieux retired.
Crosby’s first two seasons contained 100-point seasons when he was a teenager, something that has only been done four times in NHL history.
The others to do this were Gretzky, who recorded 137 points and is currently the record holder for most goals in a season by a teenager during the 1979-1980 season with the Oilers; Dale Hawerchuk, who recorded 103 during the 1981-1982 season with the Winnepeg Jets; and lastly Lemieux, who got exactly 100 points at 19 years old.
Only time will tell when the next international star will come to life!
