NHL Stats unveils online international resource

A week before the 4 Nations Face-Off begins in Montreal, the number-crunchers of the NHL Stats department are launching an online resource that’s a fascinating deep dive into the League’s international tournament history.

Literally from A to Z, from Justin Abdelkader through Mats Zuccarello, 839 skaters and 84 goalies are featured for their participation in five Canada Cup tournaments and three editions of the World Cup of Hockey, spanning 40 years.

“We look at so many different stats and look at so many different angles,” said Brendon Crossman, director of NHL statistics & information. “But to see some of the ties from the past to today’s game was pretty cool.”

The new resource, a branch of the exhaustive, definitive NHL Records website, covers Canada Cup events of 1976, 1981, 1984, 1987 and 1991, then subsequent World Cup of Hockey tournaments in 1996, 2004 and 2016.

Crossman believes the new site, adding to a thorough portfolio on the NHL Records site whose statistics include outdoor, preseason and games outside North America, is the only online resource housing all digital summaries for Canada Cup and World Cup of Hockey events, with the 4 Nations Face-Off and future NHL international events to come.

The entry point to the new NHL Stats website detailing the eight NHL international tournaments to date, the 4 Nations Face-Off to be added in real time during the upcoming event.

It’s a perfect historical primer for fans, media, hockey executives and surely more than a few of the players themselves as the 4 Nations Face-Off assembles teams from Canada, the United States, Finland and Sweden for four games at Montreal’s Bell Centre, then three more at Boston’s TD Garden, from Feb. 12-20.

The site is much more than hard, cold statistics, though the numbers in many categories are the bedrock on which it’s built.

The entry “splash” page includes three subsections from its drop-down Overview menu: Tournament Recaps, Records, and the all-time player Register.

Beside the Overview are links to Winners, Clinching Goals, History/Tournament Tidbits, and Did You Know?, the latter two categories a compendium of figures, trivia and intriguing facts about the eight tournaments to date.

Credit where its due, the new site having been engineered and produced by those who work behind the scenes of the NHL to chart the League’s statistics and history and keep it up to date almost by the minute.

Montreal Canadiens legend Jean Beliveau presents the 1996 World Cup of Hockey trophy to Team USA’s Keith Tkachuk (l.), Brian Leetch (c.) and Joel Otto at Bell Centre in Montreal.

Many with the NHL, including Crossman and communications director Josh Bernstein, as well as Stuart McComish and Mike Biergard in the statistics & information department headed by Russell Levine, have built the site developed by the team of Neil Pierson, Kevin Sullivan, Kiersten Page, Alex Haiduchonak and T.J. Sarro.

Others with the NHL Stats team helped fact-check the site, including Scott Rodgers, John Burd, Amanda Butterfield, Liv Holmes and Brett Kozak.

Work began before the COVID-19 pandemic when there was discussion of another World Cup of Hockey, following the 2016 edition.

At the suggestion of Levine, McComish began entering tournament data with the 4 Nations Face-Off not even a concept at that point.

“We knew there eventually would be an event of this (international tournament) lineage, so we’d better be ready to go when it happened,” McComish said.

There are the obvious names atop a few categories: Hall of Famers Wayne Gretzky of Canada and Chris Chelios of the U.S. each played in a leading five tournaments, Gretzky the most prolific offensive player with 64 points (20 goals, 44 assists) in his 39 games.

Team Canada’s Wayne Gretzky, the leading scorer all time in NHL international tournaments, with Finland’s Jari Kurri after the opening round-robin game of the 1991 Canada Cup at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto. The teams tied 2-2.

Grant Fuhr won two of the eight tournaments, tops among goalies. He was on Canada’s championship team in 1984 and 1987.

Canada’s Brent Sutter never lost, winning all three times he wore Team Canada’s jersey.

And then there’s John Tonelli, the perhaps unlikely most valuable player in the 1984 Canada Cup.

The four-time New York Islanders Stanley Cup champion scored nine points (three goals, six assists) but his value to Canada’s team, according to Gretzky, was greater than what he put on the scoresheet.

“All we had to do was look at him scrapping and sacrificing everything he had to give,” Gretzky said.

“It’s not just the guys you think it would be who are significant in these tournaments,” said Bernstein. “Some of the ‘quote unquote’ lesser names are just as important for the success of these teams.

“Everyone knows Gretzky and Mario Lemieux and Vladislav Tretiak. But to see a name like Tonelli pop up, I think those of us working on this site were at first surprised, but then we learned a bunch through reading more about that tournament.”

Team Canada goalie Rogie Vachon (l.) led his country to the championship in the inaugural 1976 Canada Cup. Grant Fuhr (r.) did likewise in both 1984 and 1987.

McComish says the evolution of global hockey became clear to all who worked on this project, many players who were skating in Europe finding their way to the NHL, nations beyond Canada becoming far more competitive.

Canada has been the dominant team, winning the Canada Cup four of its five editions (the Soviet Union won in 1981) and two of three World Cup of Hockey tournaments (the U.S. winning in 1996).

Biergard speaks of the historic matchups along the way, of the impact that the 1996 World Cup of Hockey had on the game in the U.S.

The new site, he said, “will be an awesome resource for someone who’s new to the game, to familiarize themselves with some of these iconic moments and series.”

There are ambitious plans for the site’s growth beyond the Canada Cup and World Cup of Hockey events. The League’s stats team is working on adding Olympic data for the five Games that have included NHL players, in advance of the 2026 Milano Cortina Olympics in Italy.

Of the 923 players who have participated in the eight Canada Cup and World Cup of Hockey events to date, 697 played in the NHL at some point in their careers (75.5 percent -- 640 skaters and 57 goalies).

From the Did You Know? subsection: The 4 Nations Face-Off will be the first NHL-hosted international tournament to only include active NHL players.

Auston Matthews (l.) and Patrik Laine were selected first and second by the Toronto Maple Leafs and Winnipeg Jets, respectively, in the 2016 NHL Draft. Seen at right in 2020 game action, they will represent their native U.S. and Finland in the 4 Nations Face-Off.

The 2016 World Cup of Hockey brought together more NHL players than any previous NHL-hosted international tournament, with 169 of the 184 players named to rosters participating in the 2015 16 season (two others, U.S. forward Auston Matthews and Finland’s Patrik Laine, were the first two picks at the 2016 NHL Draft and made their League debuts shortly after the event). Overall, 175 of 184 players had skated in the NHL in their careers (95.1 percent).

Games for NHL-hosted international tournaments (including the 4 Nations Face-Off) will have been played in 35 venues in 29 cities across six countries (from the round-robin onward).

And entering the 4 Nations Face-Off, there have been 13 sets of brothers who have played together at an NHL-hosted international tournament. The most recent were at the 2016 World Cup of Hockey: Milan and Zbynek Michalek (Czech Republic) and Daniel and Henrik Sedin (Sweden).

"Keith Tkachuk tied the record for goals in a game and now his two sons, Matthew and Brady, are going to be playing for the U.S. in the 4 Nations Face-Off,” Crossman said. “It will be nice to have a resource that we can point to and make connections like this quickly and easily and make them relevant to today’s fans.”

Goalie Henrik Lundqvist of Team Sweden prepares for 2016 World Cup of Hockey action in Toronto.

In fact, Keith Tkachuk is tied for most goals in a single tournament game, having scored four for the U.S. against Russia in the 2004 World Cup of Hockey. He equaled the total of Victor Zhluktov for the Soviet Union in the inaugural 1976 Canada Cup.

The NHL Stats department will keep the new site updated live during the 4 Nations Face-Off from the tournament’s first puck drop on Feb. 12 when Canada plays Sweden, and it will be an organic resource in the years ahead.

The evolution of NHL hockey in the international arena is in good statistical hands nearly a half-century after the first best-on-best tournament that included professional players.

“The first two games ever in the 1976 Canada Cup were Canada against Finland (11-2 for Canada) and Sweden against the U.S. (5-2 for Sweden),” Crossman said.

For the record, Canada’s Phil Esposito and Sweden’s Anders Hedberg scored the winning goals, there were 132 combined shots on goal, and referees Gord Lee and Bill Friday called a combined 56 penalty minutes.

You can look it up, because NHL Stats & Information already has.

Top photo: Sidney Crosby carries the championship trophy after Canada won the 2016 World Cup of Hockey in Toronto. Crosby will again be his country’s captain for the 4 Nations Face-Off.