Oh Canada!

Have a look at the NHL's top ten in points. As of Nov.2, 2010 each and every one of the top ten scorers in the league was born in Canada. Yes that is extremely rare. OK fine, tied at 8th place is Paul Stastny who represents USA internationally, but he was born in Quebec City. Also, Dany Heatley was indeed born in Germany, he plays for Canada. If we really want to break it down, Alex Ovechkin is actually ranked 8th on the strength of more goals scored than Stastny, Heatley and Derek Roy. Even still, the top seven scorers in the NHL being Canadian is an extremely rare occurance.

Steven Stamkos from Markham, Ont, Patrick Sharp from Winnipeg, Chris Stewart of Toronto, Regina's Ryan Getzlaf, Joe Thornton of London, Sidney Crosby of Cole Harbour N.S. and Brad Richards from Murray Harbour PEI are not very likely to all finish one through seven in scoring.
The last time that happened in the NHL was 1990/91 when the top eleven scorers were Canadian...sort of. Second overall Brett Hull was born in Belleville, Ontario but of course played for the US internationally.

So, because Hull should really be considered an American, the last actual time that Canadians thoroughly dominated the scoring leaders was 1979/80. The top twelve scorers from Marcel Dionne and Wayne Gretzky with 137 points to Blair MacDonald and Al McAdam with 94 and 93 were all born and raised in Canada. Only Kent Nilsson in 13th and Mark Howe in 24th kept the Canadians from sweeping the top 35 scorers in the league.

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