Euro-sion?

Maxim Afinogenov

Has having an abundance of European players meant failure in this year's Stanley Cup playoffs?

Following the Mikhail Grabovsky post from a day ago, I poked my nose into the Canadiens.com message forum, starting a thread that has since branched off into a discussion of European-born vs. Canadian-born prospects.

One of the posters on the forum put up this bit of information:

The following is a break down of the teams that were in playoffs and the amount of European players that each team had (results after Round 1):

1. New Jersey Devils 2
2. Colorado Avalanche 3
3. Calgary Flames 3 eliminated
4. Nashville Predators 3 eliminated
5. Edmonton Oilers 4
6. Carolina Hurricanes 4
7. San Jose Sharks 6
8. Mighty Ducks of Anaheim 6
9. Ottawa Senators 7
10. Buffalo Sabres 7
11. Tampa Bay Lightning 7 eliminated
12. Dallas Stars 8 eliminated
13. Montreal Canadiens 9 eliminated
14. Philadelphia Flyers 9 eliminated
15. Detroit Red Wings 9 eliminated
16. New York Rangers 14 eliminated

Taking no other variables into consideration, it seems that 6 of the 8 teams with seven or more Europeans on their roster lost in the first round, while only 2 of the 8 teams with six or less European players were eliminated.

Could these numbers (mind you, I didn't check them) be giving us a true picture, or are they just a bunch of "horse hockey"?

A couple of weeks back, Scott Burnside wrote a column for ESPN.com that discussed the merits of having a group of Europeans from a single country on one team, such as the Rangers did with Czech-born players:

It has been almost a decade since Scotty Bowman made hockey headlines when he sent his five Russians over the boards en route to the Detroit Red Wings' first Stanley Cup in 42 years.

But there remained for many years the idea that teams who had too many Europeans ran the risk of not having enough chemistry, not having enough chutzpah to win when it counted. Mike Smith, a former GM in Winnipeg and Chicago, was a master at uncovering European talent but couldn't quite translate that into playoff wins, which added fuel to the debate.

Then, when Bowman looked down his bench and decided it made sense to roll out a forward line of Sergei Fedorov, Slava Kozlov and Igor Larionov backed up by defensemen Slava Fetisov and Vladimir Konstantinov in 1996-97, the hockey world waited for the collapse that didn't come.

Greg, from the uniformly excellent The Post-Pessimist Association blog, provides another counterpoint, while discussing the same Burnside column:

But in hockey, it's still considered quite acceptable to Euro-bash.

It's not just a playoff issue -- witness the debate over the two star rookies. When it's finally grudgingly admitted that Ovechkin had a better year than Crosby, it comes with the caveat that he's two years older. Like he cheated. Canadian fans act like they'll undergo a nationwide penis-shrinkage if it's acknowledged that Ovechkin might actually be in Sid's class.

But it's the postseason where the weirdo hockey nationalists really come out to play. The Rangers won't win because they have too many Europeans! They'd rather be at the World Championships! No, the Rangers won't win because they don't have enough depth and their defense is pretty thin.

There've been enough excellent European playoff performances by now -- off the top of my head, Bure in '94, Kamensky in '96, Zubov, Kovalev, Hejduk, all those Red Wings douchebags -- that it's not really any sort of valid question any more, but there's still an undercurrent of "Euros disappear in April." It's a sad, silly argument, and the underlying causes aren't easy to counter -- is it best to send Patrik Eliáš and Martin Havlát around to explain their first round stats? Perhaps kneecap Don Cherry? Hell, I dunno. It's late and I've had a bit much to drink.

Now, that's something that I wish I could've written... maybe I just don't drink enough?