The world ranking system used by the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) is pretty straightforward. Teams get a certain number of points based on where they place in the last four world hockey championships and the most recent Olympic tournament, with more recent results being worth more points.
It means it’s all about winning — which makes sense. Hockey games aren’t decided by how many goals are scored, but rather which team scores the most goals. In the end, winning by one goal or eight goals makes no difference in the standings or on the podium.
The world rankings don’t reflect a broader assessment of hockey in each nation, but rather how national teams perform in international tournaments. Even so, the rankings of that performance are somewhat superficial.
A nation that squeaks by with close wins might secure as many points as a nation that wins in blowouts, but that doesn’t mean those two teams are of equal quality.
Take, for example, the current men’s world ranking. There are as many points separating first-place Canada from the sixth-ranked United States as there are between the U.S. and 10th-place Latvia. Is the real-world gap between Canada and the U.S. as wide as the gap between the U.S. and Latvia? Not a chance.
So, let’s take a difference approach.
In the chart below, I’ve ranked teams by their average goal differential (GD) per game over the last eight world hockey championships. I’ve chosen that many tournaments because it gives a good number of games (nearly equivalent to an NHL season for the top teams) and that is when the IIHF adopted the format currently in place for the lower divisions.
The chart also shows the ranking according to goals-for per game (GF/G), goals-against per game (GA/G) and the current IIHF world ranking (along with, for good measure, the top scorer on each national team since 2012). Rankings are coloured when they are higher (green) or lower (red) than a team’s goal differential ranking.
These rankings make it easier to see how nations truly compare — and how they can be grouped together in tiers.
1st tier: Canada and Russia
Canada and Russia hold the top two spots in the rankings with utterly dominant performances. Since 2012, Canada has won its games by an average of 2.69 goals, followed closely by the Russians at 2.55 goals per game. Both these nations have scored an average of over four goals per game and allowed less than two.
To put that into context, the Boston Bruins — this season’s best team in the NHL — won their games in the regular season by an average of 0.76 goals.
Relative to their opponents, Canada and Russia have been as good over the last eight years as the 1976-77 Montreal Canadians, who won their games by an average of 2.7 goals, the best goal differential in NHL history. In other words, the national Canadian and Russian men’s teams since 2012 have been as good, relative to their opponents, as arguably the best team to ever play in the NHL.
It puts Canada and Russia in a league of their own, and they have the medals to show for it. Both Canada and Russia have each won two golds and two silvers since 2012, while the Russians also added two bronze medals to their haul.
2nd tier: Sweden
Sweden stands in third on this list. With a goal differential of 1.74 goals per game, it has had the third-most potent offence (3.8 goals scored per game) and the fourth-best defence (2.1 goals-against per game).
An argument could be made that Sweden belongs in the next tier, because it doesn’t score much more than the United States or have a much better defence than Finland. But the combination of the two sets it apart — the Swedes’ goal differential is more than half-a-goal higher than that of the U.S. and Finland. Sweden is also the only country to have won three gold medals over the last eight years.
3rd tier: United States, Finland and the Czech Republic
The next tier are three nations that win by an average of about one goal per game. The U.S. is at the top with a positive goal differential of 1.15, helped by its high-scoring offence. The Americans score 3.7 goals per game, just behind the Swedes. But their defence is not nearly as good — they allow 2.5 goals per game, ranking them sixth overall and tied with Switzerland. Their inability to actually win medals has hurt them in the world rankings, where they are also sixth. They’ve won three bronze medals over the last eight years, and finished fourth once.
The Finns are an over-achieving hockey nation. Unlike the Americans, they are able to win even if their roster is lacking high-impact NHL talent. The Finns win thanks to their defence. Their positive goal differential of 1.13 is just behind the Americans, but they score half-a-goal less per game than the U.S. does. They have a stingy defence, ranked third overall at two goals-allowed per game. They also know how to win, with one gold and two silvers since 2012. In addition, they have finished fourth three times, meaning they have played for a medal more often since 2012 than any other nation except Russia.
In sixth are the Czechs. They always ice a solid team and win their games by an average of 1.07 goals. The Czechs score 3.3 goals per game, a little better than the Finns, and allow 2.2 goals per game, a little worse than the Swedes. They haven’t delivered when it counts, though, with only one bronze medal since 2012. They have fallen short in the bronze medal match three times.
4th tier: Switzerland and Slovakia
Now we move out of the Big Six and into the best of the rest. Switzerland is the only country outside of the top six that has a positive goal differential. The Swiss have won their games by an average of 0.35 goals and have two silvers to show for it. The Swiss can be unpredictable — in some tournaments they keep up with the Big Six while in others they fail to qualify for the quarterfinals.
The Slovaks are on the downslope in terms of their performance, but over the last eight years they still managed to post a goal differential that is only slightly negative at -0.2 goals per game (and one silver medal). They both score and allow a little under three goals per game, a sign of how they can often come up just short. In 2019, the Slovaks hosted a heart breaker of a tournament. They lost two games by a single goal, in both cases that goal coming in the last 30 seconds of play.
5th tier: Latvia, Germany, Denmark, Norway and France
This fifth tier includes two reliably competitive hockey nations and three that are hit-and-miss.
The Latvians finish ninth in these rankings, primarily because of their good defence. The Latvians don’t score a lot — at 2.1 goals per game, they are ranked 12th. But they keep the puck out of the net, allowing three goals per game, good enough for ninth. Their goal differential of -0.88 puts them ahead of the Germans, which might come as a bit of a surprise.
Germany, after all, is the land of Leon Draisaitl — along with other quality NHLers like Dominik Kahun, Thomas Greiss and Philipp Grubauer and prospects Tim Stützle, Dominik Bokk and Moritz Seider. This suggests the Germans have some upside and could climb these rankings, but since 2012 their goal differential has been -0.95, good enough for 10th overall. That’s much worse than their current 7th-place in the official world rankings.
After these two, we move into countries that lose by an average of just over one goal per game: Denmark and Norway at -1.12 and France at -1.19. The Danes have a 10th-ranked defence but 13th ranked offence, while the Norwegians and French tie for ninth in scoring, at 2.3 goals per game. At 3.5 goals against, however, the Norwegians and French more often than not find themselves on the losing side — in 2019 it meant relegation for the French.
Relegation tier: Belarus, Slovenia, Kazakhstan, Hungary, Austria, Italy, Great Britain and South Korea
Now, the rest.
Belarus is very clearly at the top of this last tier, as the Belarusians very rarely find themselves relegated, as they did in 2018. Along with Kazakhstan, Belarus is the only nation in this group to score an average of two goals per game, and they are the only one to allow fewer than four goals per game. They are good enough to beat-up on some of the other bottom teams, but when they tank against the top nations they can tank hard.
Slovenia, Kazakhstan, Austria and Italy can be counted on to be in the top division half of the time. The Italians struggle to score at less than one goal per game, while they all allow an average of at least four goals per game. The Italian goal differential of -4.04 is worse than the 1974-75 Washington Capitals, who had a goal differential of -3.31. So, relative to its opposition, the Italian national team is worse than the worst team in NHL history.
The Hungarians, British and Koreans have only been in one top-level tournament in the last eight years. The Hungarians had the best showing with a goal differential of -2.71, while the British lost by an average of 4.57 goals and the Koreans were stomped upon, losing by an average of 6.29 goals per game. Ouch.
Another look at the bottom teams
It’s not particularly fair, however, to grade the bottom teams by their performance in the top level of IIHF competition only. Over the last eight years, Kazakhstan, Slovenia, South Korea, Hungary and Great Britain have all played more games in the Division 1A tournament than in the top level.
So, here’s that chart again with teams that have played more of their games in the Division 1A level ranked by goal differential in that tournament.
Here we see a few differences, with Austria and Italy both moving up three slots into the top 16 (in Division 1A play itself, Austria ranks second and Italy ranks fourth). Kazakhstan drops two spots and Slovenia and Hungary each drop three slots. Great Britain is the biggest loser out of this, dropping from 20th to 24th. The British rank behind teams like Poland and Ukraine that haven’t been in the top 16 for years — but because they secured promotion in 2018, the British punched their ticket to Slovakia in 2019.
This also gives us a means of comparison of the two divisions. Kazakhstan and Slovenia (and Austria, at a positive goal differential of 1.75 in Division 1A) are roughly as dominant in Division 1A as Sweden is in the top division.
One last alternative look at the rankings
There are a number of things these rankings (and the IIHF’s world rankings) don’t take into account. One of them is population — all else being equal, a bigger country should be better at hockey than a smaller one.
Of course, all things aren’t equal. So, here’s how the national teams stack-up per capita, showing the goals scored per game in the world hockey championship since 2012 per million people.
You clearly see a pattern here. Scandinavian and Central European countries punch above their weight. But the biggest over-achiever — and by an enormous margin — is Latvia, a country of just 1.9 million people. Per capita, the Latvians have scored twice as many goals as nearly every other nation that has played in the world hockey championship since 2012.
Pound-for-pound, you can’t beat the Latvians in international hockey. They haven’t had a huge impact in North America — since the 2011-12 season, just seven skaters and two goalies from Latvia have played at least one regular season game in the NHL. The three Canadian Maritime provinces, which have a combined population of about 1.8 million, have produced 33 skaters and five goalies over the same time period (though, to be fair, most of them haven’t had much of an impact on the league either).
The Finns are the biggest over-achievers among the Big Six, per capita scoring nearly five times as many goals as Canada. But Canada itself performs pretty well, particularly against its bigger rivals. By this measure, Canada is four times better than Russia — and 12 times better than the United States.