I'm surprised either country even has a hockey team. Come to think of it I've never even heard of hockey being played outside of North America, Europe, and Australia/New Zealand.
They aren't great at hockey but the IIHF rankings (which aren't great either) have Kazakhstan ranked 15th (almost certainly as high as they are due to the influence from when they were part of the Soviet Union) but also South Korea in 21st and Japan in 25th.
China is now ranked 26th. I know Russia has been trying to grow hockey there and recently put a KHL team in China.
https://www.iihf.com/en/worldrankingThe rankings are kind of a joke, but they do give an indication of where hockey is played.
Germany ranking ahead of Sweden is ridiculous as is Switzerland ahead of the Czech Republic (Czechia) (not to mention Germany ranking ahead of Chechia and probably Switzerland.)
Those in the top 9 are clearly better than all the rest.
Of course, the IIHF can only base this on the tournaments that are played.
I'd probably rank the top 9 based on NHL players and tournaments:
1.U.S.A
2.Canada
3.Sweden
4.Russia
5.Finland
6.Czechia
as the clear top 6 and then
7.Slovakia
8.Switzerland
9.Germany
and then another drop off. Denmark or Latvia are very likely #10, but they're probably too close to call.
