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IIHF International Hockey Rankings

Great Britain and Germany are up, China and Canada are down. Russia takes over the top spot.

The 2011 NHL Entry Draft had an international flair, led by three Swedes in the first six picks. Overall, 32.4% of all draft choices were of European descent. Below is a breakdown of all of the selections by country of origin, via Wikipedia:

Rank Country Picks Percent

North America 142 67.6%

Europe 68 32.4%
1 Canada 83 39.5%
2 United States 59 28.1%
3 Sweden 28 13.3%
4 Czech Republic 10 4.8%
Finland 10 4.8%
6 Russia 9 4.3%
7 Slovakia 4 1.9%
8 Germany 2 1.0%
Norway 2 1.0%
Switzerland 2 1.0%
11 Denmark 1 0.5%


As countries like Switzerland and Denmark continue to build on international hockey success, it's likely that the number of drafted players will begin to rise slowly, eroding the North American percentage. After the jump I'll look at the latest IIHF rankings, released after the World Championships.

The explanation of the rankings criteria can be found here. The methodology only uses five tournaments to complete the ranking:

The IIHF World Ranking is based on awarding points for the final positions in the last four IIHF World Championships and in the last Olympic Ice Hockey Tournament.



Points Movement
1 Russia 3650 1
2 Finland 3630 1
2 Sweden 3630 2
4 Canada 3595 -3
5 Czech Republic 3570 1
6 United States 3340 -1
7 Switzerland 3240 1
8 Germany 3190 4
9 Norway 3175 2
10 Slovakia 3130 -3
11 Belarus 3025 -2
12 Latvia 2985 -2
13 Denmark 2965 0
14 France 2765 2
15 Austria 2730 -1
16 Kazakhstan 2615 3
17 Italy 2605 -2
18 Slovenia 2565 0
19 Ukraine 2495 -2
20 Hungary 2460 0
21 Great Britain 2250 3
22 Japan 2245 -1
23 Poland 2215 -1
24 Lithuania 2125 -1
25 Netherlands 2080 0
26 Estonia 1940 0
27 Croatia 1890 0
28 Romania 1800 0
29 Spain 1785 1
30 Serbia 1755 -1
31 Korea 1605 2
32 Bulgaria 1405 -1
33 Mexico 1385 -1
34 Australia 1350 0
35 Belgium 1180 1
36 Iceland 1125 3
37 Turkey 1110 0
38 New Zealand 1065 2
39 China 1060 -4
40 Israel 885 -2
41 Ireland 785 1
42 South Africa 740 -1
43 Luxembourg 650 1
44 Greece 640 2
45 DPR Korea 485 -2
46 Mongolia 315 -1
47 United Arab Emirates 165 NA
48 Bosnia and Herzegovina 50 -1
NR Armenia - NA


Canada slides three spots to number 4, while Finland rises to the second spot on the strength of their World Championship win.

Great Britain has risen from 25th a year ago to 21st today. Star goaltender Ben Bowns should backstop the British team for a number of years and has a chance to carry the team a couple of slots higher.

It's a bit of a surprise to see both Germany and Norway surpass Slovakia, but Slovakia was missing a number of their best players due to the NHL playoffs.

The Chinese have slipped 10 spots in a little over a year.