For Fun

The AHL and ECHL are ready to kick start their season tomorrow.  Otherwise known as the only professionally affiliated leagues to be playing in North America this year.  With the European leagues well under way, I figured it will be interesting to compare all the leagues as they continue to progress.

Here are the current leaders of the leagues that I follow provided by myself personally.  Finland and the Czech league are the only two major ones in my opinion that I do not keep track of on my own, therefore they will not be included.

 

As the season continues I will update the list on a weekly-ish basis and see how long it takes for the list to be dominated by the AHL or ECHL.  Now I know leagues can vary greatly.  Nobody from the Swiss or Swedish leagues made the list.  Some leagues play more games, the style can be different, even penalties are different.  In the end it all balances out.

Let's take a quick look at the above.  For starters nobody from the current lockout has made the list (yet).  The current points leader from the Austrian league is clearly not from Europe though he has never played a game in the NHL or AHL so congrats for doing well overseas. 

Former NHL prospect Alex Radulov makes both lists.  Had the talent to be a solid NHL player but had one of those classic don't-give-a-crap Russian attitudes.  Even when he came back to Nashville last year for the playoffs he was sat out do to lackluster playing.

I won't name everybody who has AHL or NHL experience on the list because it would be most of them but there are a few cool names.  DiBenedetto moved to Europe for the first time after three AHL seasons.  Zherdev was a 4th overall pick and last played for the Flyers before succumbing to that dang attitude problem. 

In the penalty category we get more classic names starting with the first one.  Artyukhin is a big man who played his first professional season in the wonderful town of Hershey.  Elfring has been playing in Germany for 12 years but his first AHL team he played for was Hershey.  Lefebvre started his career with the Flyers before moving to Pittsburgh and bouncing around after that.  He had over 100 penalty minutes in the AHL five times.  And how about Mr. Bartulis rounding out the list.  The former Flyer spent the last five seasons in the organization before leaving for a place closer to home.  And he was never known for accumulating penalties.