NHL Goalie Nationality Breakdown from 1917‑18 to 2012‑13
The charts below show the percentage of NHL goalie nationalities between 1917‑18 and 2012‑13 seasons. Contribution of each nationality is displayed across the following statistics: Number of Goalies, Games Played, Minutes, Wins and Goals Against. You can view chart data for each season in the NHL Goalie Totals by Nationality stats page.
Canadians managed to dominate the goaltender position slightly longer than they could for forwards and defensemen. Percentage of Canadian born goalies did not begin to decrease until the mid 1980s, when roughly 90% of all goalies still held a Canadian passport. At that point, it was the U.S. goalies, led by Tom Barrasso and John Vanbiesbrouck, who began to challenge their Canadian rivals and gradually ate away 15% of Canadian ice time.
On a country by country basis, European goalies have had less success in NHL than the European players - this is with a few exceptions. Finnish goalies took the NHL by storm at the turn of the Millenium and quickly increased their share of NHL goalies to 10%. this clearly exceeds the equivalent share held by the Finnish players.