Sign of the times? Why are top American players leaving their Canadian NHL teams?

With the Vancouver Canucks currently in the midst of a fully fledged rebuild, it’s worth remembering that only two years ago they were a win away from eliminating the Edmonton Oilers and reaching the Western Conference final.

Led by American stars Quinn Hughes and J.T. Miller, the team seemed set for a return to the playoffs at the very least the following season, building up to contender status and ultimate designs on that long-awaited first championship in franchise history.

But a falling-out between Miller and Elias Pettersson necessitated moving out the team’s leading scorer in early 2025, while Hughes decided he didn’t want to commit his long-term future to the team later that same year. The Canucks traded him to Minnesota last December.

“You lose your top forward and your top defenceman within 12 months, and it’s definitely going to set any franchise back,” said Jim Rutherford, the Hall of Fame hockey executive who was Vancouver’s president of hockey operations at that time.

But the Canucks are far from being the only Canadian franchise feeling spurned by American-born stars these days.

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From Matthew Tkachuk and the late Johnny Gaudreau leaving the Calgary Flames four years ago, to Brady Tkachuk saying farewell to Ottawa and Connor Hellebuyck’s trade request out of Winnipeg, there has been a recent spate of high-profile U.S. players putting Canada in the rear-view mirror.

Rutherford stops short of calling it a trend, pointing to a similar situation playing out just across the border in Detroit, where Red Wings captain Dylan Larkin has also asked for a fresh start elsewhere.

“I think it’s too early to tell,” he said

“I don’t think it’s just about Canada. I mean, Canada is a great place for players to play and anybody that’s lived in Canada or is from Canada understands hockey is No. 1, and to play for a Canadian franchise, I think, is really special.”

It’s an opinion seconded by the captain of the Oilers, whose team prevailed against Rutherford’s Canucks in that 2024 playoff series on its way to its first of back-to-back Stanley Cup final appearances.

Connor McDavid feels it’s about having a chance to win. It’s a situation that he’s overtly familiar with, having opted for short extension with the Oilers as he continues to chase his first Stanley Cup. The continuation of his own 11-year stay in Canada is likely to come under the microscope this season, with the reigning scoring champion under contract for just two more in Edmonton.

“I don’t know if it’s Americans wanting to leave Canada, or if it’s simply just they don’t see the opportunity to win on that specific team,” McDavid told the 32 Thoughts podcast earlier this month. “We signed Ryan Shea, Trent Frederic signed a long extension in Edmonton. Americans still want to play in Canada – at least that’s the sense that I get – but they want to play for teams where they see a future.”

That seems to be the case in Montreal, where 51-goal scorer Cole Caufield and star defenceman Lane Hutson, both Americans, were only too happy to commit their long-term futures to the Canadiens. The team reached the Eastern Conference final last year, and both are contracted to the team until 2031.

In Toronto, Maple Leafs captain Auston Matthews – thought by some to be the next U.S. star to ask to be repatriated after captaining his country to Olympic hockey gold – doubled down on his Canadian commitment at the opening of training camp.

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“My intent was always to be here,” he said, adding that the moves made by new general manager John Chayka have energized the team after missing out on the playoffs last year.

But things aren’t quite so positive in Ottawa and Winnipeg. The Senators are trying to move on after Tkachuk’s departure early in the summer, while the Jets are in a holding pattern with their former Hart Trophy-winning goaltender, who has publicly requested a trade. The Senators have participated in just two playoff series in the past 10 seasons, while the Jets haven’t made it out of the second round since 2018.

The 33-year-old Hellebuyck, who was drafted by Winnipeg in 2012, has five years left on the US$59.5-million contract he signed in 2023. He is currently suspended by the team after failing to report for training camp last week.

Hall of Famer Mark Messier says that both player and team should take their share of the blame when their relationship sours. With teams getting seven years of service out of a player before they qualify for unrestricted free agency, organizations have plenty of time to show that they can build a winner around them.

“If I’m a young guy, even back when I played … and I want to win a Stanley Cup, and the organization is not doing a good job, I mean, I would definitely think about wanting to go somewhere else or leave, whether it’s the States or Canada,” he said on a conference call to launch another season of ESPN hockey coverage.

Whether or not these recent moves are enough to make organizations reconsider their draft-day selections is a possible long-term consideration. The Maple Leafs picked Canadian Gavin McKenna this summer with the first overall pick, but 10 years previously it was Matthews whose name was first called. Would it have been different in the current environment, with Finland’s Patrik Laine ultimately going second to Winnipeg?

“Maybe it becomes more of what they try to uncover as they’re talking to these 18-year-old players,” said ESPN hockey analyst Ray Ferraro. “But I would say it’s far less likely than more likely that all the American players are going to say, ‘I don’t want to play in Canada.’ You’re so fortunate to be in the league that there’s very few players that can dictate where they’re going to go.”

Sports economist Neil Longley, the author of the hockey business book A Whole New Game, says that the explosion in U.S. talent is partly underpinning this, with the growth of American-born NHL players moving from 17 per cent at the turn of the century to 27.8 per cent this past season.

An additional factor is the relatively recent birth of unrestricted free agency in hockey, which started following the 1995 lockout and exploded after the salary cap era launched in 2005.

“If you look at this a little bit more big picture, step away from the specific issue at hand, it’s free agency,” said Longley, who is professor emeritus in the Isenberg school of management at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

“NHL players, veterans at least, got unrestricted free agency. So for the first time, it allowed players to play in their preferred location.”

It’s not only free agents calling the shots either. As Longley points out, current NHL defencemen Adam Fox and John Marino, two Harvard players who had been drafted by Calgary and Edmonton respectively, refused to play for those Canadian clubs. Both clubs were ultimately forced to trade the prospects to U.S. teams. Fox went on to win the Norris Trophy with the New York Rangers five years ago.

In addition, the current political relationship between Canada and the U.S. is hardly helping the prospects of keeping American players north of the border. Hellebuyck claims that his wife received online abuse after he took part in the State of the Union Address in Washington following Team USA’s Olympic victory. With American athletes being witness to Canadians not purchasing American products, it can make for an uncomfortable association, however long it lasts.

“We know that Canada is very much now in a mode of trying to avoid all things American, I guess, to put it in a way,” Longley said. “And I don’t know whether that will eventually spill over, and whether general managers want to respond to that, or whether this is just a quick thing that’s going to fade here eventually.”