Canadians poured into the streets of Vancouver to celebrate after Martin Brodeur's save on Martin Pluess won Thursday night's game for Canada. But the fact remains: It was a shootout victory by the barest of margins against Switzerland. 'Just one guy I was able to pronounce his name,' Brodeur said of the four Swiss players, all unknown to him, whom he faced in the overtime shootout. That Switzerland, with 17 players from its modest National League A, earned a point in the standings against the 23 NHL stars who compose Canada's Olympic men's team says a lot about the strength of Europe's domestic leagues. 'It says the Swiss league is maybe not as bad as you think here in the United States and Canada,' said defenseman Patrick von Gunten, who scored Switzerland's tying goal. No one says that the NHL is anything less than the world's top league. But some of the best players so far at these Olympics do not make their living in it. Some once were stars in North America: Jaromir Jagr of Avangard Omsk in the Russian KHL, Zigmund Palffy of HK 36 Skalica in the Slovakian Extraliga, Peter Forsberg of Modo Hockey Ornskoldsvik in the Swedish Elitserien and Sergei Fedorov of Metallurg Magnitogorsk in the KHL Others are players who established themselves as stars in their respective domestic leagues: Alexei Morozov of Ak Bars Kazan in the KHL, Roman Cervenka of Slavia Prague in the Czech Extraliga and Hnat Domenichelli of SC Bern in the Swiss NHLA. 'We can skate -- in Switzerland the games are so fast,' Domenichelli said after the Swiss team had rallied from two goals behind to extend Canada to overtime and then to a shootout. Domenichelli was born and raised in Edmonton, Alberta, and played 267 NHL games before heading to Switzerland in 2003. He is the NHLA's No. 2 scorer. Palffy, of the Slovakian team that upset Russia in a shootout late Thursday, scored 329 goals with the Islanders, the Los Angeles Kings and the Pittsburgh Penguins before returning to his hometown club in Skalica in 2007. At 37, he is the top scorer in the Slovakian Extraliga, but he has often expressed his dissatisfaction with the quality of play there. 'The level there is a little bit lower,' Palffy said. 'I don't think we can compare it with the NHL or some other leagues in Europe. I don't think it's for me right now. I'm going to move somewhere else.' Palffy, who in Vancouver is playing on a potent line with Marian Gaborik of the Rangers and Jozef Stumpel of Barys Astana of the KHL, did not say which league he would seek to join. Jagr, however, had good things to say about the KHL, where he is in his second season. 'There's a lot more skating' in that league than in the NHL, he said, in part because of the larger ice surfaces. In the Czech Republic's 3-1 victory over Slovakia on Wednesday, Jagr showed that the KHL had not eroded the skills that won him five NHL scoring titles between 1995 and 2001. Skating alongside Cervenka, who leads the Czech Extraliga in scoring, Jagr had a goal and an assist and was the best player on the ice. Fedorov, the highest-scoring Russian in NHL history, returned home at the start of this season after 20 in North America. Now he is one of 60 KHL players at the Olympics -- a total second only to the NHL's 140 -- and he said he was happy with his choice. 'I had enough in the National Hockey League,' the 40-year-old Fedorov said. 'Plus, when you play a top role in every team you go to and then you play a little bit less of a role, it's tough to be a once-in-a-while spark plug. In the KHL, I guess I found a balance where I can still play top-level hockey.' Fedorov set up Russia's first two goals in its victory over Latvia on Tuesday. The Russian team is led by the NHL stars Alex Ovechkin, Evgeni Malkin and Ilya Kovalchuk, but important roles are played by KHL stars like Fedorov, Alexander Radulov and the national team's all-purpose line, which comprises Morozov, the team captain, Danis Zaripov and Sergei Zinoviev. Big upsets have happened before at the Olympics since 1998, when NHL players began participating. Sometimes NHL players are the main reason for the surprise, sometimes not. In 2006 Switzerland beat Canada, 2-0, thanks to the work of Ottawa Senators goalie Martin Gerber. But in 2002 Belarus knocked off Sweden with a team made up almost entirely of players from the Belarussian league. On Thursday Switzerland's best players against Canada were from the NHL -- goalie Jonas Hiller of the Anaheim Ducks, who stopped 44 shots, and Islanders defenseman Mark Streit, the captain, who played 25 excellent minutes. But Pluess, Ivo Ruethemann and Roman Wick, all NHLA stars, stood out as well. 'We have good quality in our league,' Wick said after the game. 'It developed more and more over the years. 'Now we know we can keep up on small ice against guys like Pronger,' Wick said, motioning to the Philadelphia Flyers' Chris Pronger, the big Canadian defenseman talking to a much larger group of reporters 10 feet away. 'And that gives us confidence.' 