This past year, the NHL saw players representing 18 countries play in the league. There are players from the expected titans of Canada, the USA, and Sweden, as well as non-traditional hockey hotbeds like Australia, the Netherlands, and Slovenia. It has been 18 years since a player who wears the red and white with an eagle crest skated on NHL ice. In the 2006 season, Krzysztof Oliwa and Mariusz Czerkawski played their final NHL games. 

It is the question I get asked the most by my North American readers. When will Poland get another NHL player? But getting an NHL player is pure luck for a country like Poland. 

While 18 national teams had a player skate in the NHL this past year, it’s not an even split. Hockey’s big six countries, Canada, Czechia, Finland, Russia, Sweden, and the United States, make up 94.4% of NHL players. The rest of the world has the remaining 5.6%, with Switzerland being the only one with double digit players at 11. To drive the point home even more, 5.6% is mainly the second tier of hockey countries, Switzerland (1.1%), Germany (0.9%), Slovakia (0.8%), and Denmark (0.6%). 

When you look at teams that have played in Division One of the IIHF World Championship system, no one is expected to be a team that produces constant NHL players. In fact, of the 20 countries that have played in a Division One tournament since 2012, nine have never even had an NHL player. Only Belarus, which spent a single season in Division One, has had double-digit NHL players. A lot of those Austrian, Belarusian, Ukrainian, and Kazak players also had very short careers.

I’m a big believer in natural talent in hockey. Some players are just wired the perfect way or have the perfect body to excel at the sport. If they live in a place with decent enough infrastructure and commit to training, then they should be able to find a way to higher-level hockey, e.g., Nathan Walker (Australia) and Yutaka Fukufuji (Japan). 

You just have to get lucky and hope your nation has one of those naturally gifted players. But how common are they? The IIHF’s most recent report says there are currently 1,386,209 male hockey players worldwide (China was the lone IIHF country to not submit data this year). This year, 1,040 players appeared in at least one NHL game. In the simplest terms, that means with everything considered equal, every 1 in 1,333 players that register with the IIHF should play an NHL game. 

The great news for Poland is that they currently have 3,507 players registered with the IIHF. By the simplest of logic, Poland should have 2.6 NHL players. The crazy thing is Poland is at that number, and have been for most of the 2000s. There is just one problem: those players did not or are not representing Poland. 

When Czerkawski and Oliwa left the NHL, two more Polish born players were starting their careers. Wojtek Wolski was born in Zabrze, Poland, in 1986, but his family left the country in 1989. He eventually landed in Ontario, Canada, and began his hockey career. Wolski would be a first-round pick in the 2004 NHL draft and play in 480 games from 2006 to 2013. The same season, the late Stefan Liv spent his lone year in North America. Liv was born in Gdynia, Poland in 1980. He was adopted by a Swedish couple out of a Gdansk’s orphanage around the age of two. Liv would become one of the best young goalies in Sweden and be drafted in the fourth round of the 2000 NHL draft. In 2007, he would play pre-season games and have backup duties for the Detroit Red Wings, but did not appear in an NHL game. 

Fast-forward to 2024. On May 9th, Maksymilian Szuber suited up for the Arizona Coyotes. He became the first Polish-born player since Wolski to play in an NHL game. The defenseman was born in Opole, Poland, but his family moved to Germany early in his life. He has now represented Germany at three World Championships, winning silver in 2023. Szuber remains under contract for next season with the now Utah Mammoth.

On May 22nd, 2025, the Tampa Bay Lightning announced they signed Wojciech Stachowiak to an NHL contract. It’s a huge accomplishment for the star of the German national team. Stachowiak made his first appearance for Germany in 2022. Since then his 21 total points at the World Championship are tied with teammate JJ Peterka for the fifth most by any player at the event. The new Lightning forward was born in Gdansk and even played his youth hockey with local Stoczniowiec Gdansk. Stachowiak would wear the red and white at the U16 level for an Olympics’ Hope Tournament. He moved to Germany in 2011 to play junior hockey and has represented the country since the 2016 season. 

The hockey world may see one more Pole enter the NHL ranks in a few months. Patryk Zubek was born in Nowy Targ and would play hockey for his hometown until the 2023 season. During that time, Zubek had also represented Poland at non-IIHF U16 events. His strong play in Poland earned him a chance in Slovakia. The young defenseman dominated the U18 level and immediately caught the attention of the Slovak national team. After skipping a pre-season Poland U18 camp in 2024, Zubek would announce in an interview that he had applied for Slovak citizenship. He has since represented Slovakia at the 2024 and 2025 U18 World Championships. The Nowy Targ native is ranked as the 226th player in the 2025 NHL draft by FCHOCKEY and 130th among EU skaters by NHL Central Scouting. 

You can’t calculate luck. If Liv, Szuber, or Wolski grew up in Poland, they probably would have never laced up skates. But in terms of people with a potential gift for hockey, Poland got lucky in how many they have had; they just got unlucky in them leaving Poland. 

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