Statistics of Johnny Gaudreau, a hockey player from Salem, NJ born Aug 13 1993 who was active from 2010 to 2024.
www.hockeydb.com
I think they should vote Gaudreau into the Hall of Fame when the time is right.
He would have been over 1000 points when he retired if his life wasn't cut short.
I disagree
He never won a major award, had a limited playoff career and only had two elite seasons in his career
His death was tragedy but that doesn't make him a HHOF IMO
If guys like Middleton, Mogilny, Nicholls, Brind'Amour, Fleury, Larmer and Damphousse are not in HHOF it would be hard to justify JG going into HOF ahead of them
Then you got guys like Brad Richards, Vincent Lecavilier, Gary Roberts, etc and others who you can argue had greater careers, on par or it can be argued were more impactful
There are 4 guys with 500+ goals who are not active players who are not in HOF (Only 47 players in history of league have scored 500 goals)
Patrick Marleau (566)
Keith Tkachuk (538)
Pat Verbeek (522)
Petr Bondra (503)
Can it be argued JG is more deserving than them? Tkachuk and Bondra scoring 500+ playing in dead puck era for most of careers to me is more impressive then Gaudreau career
Also, Gaudreau was not safe bet for 1,000 pts
He was 31 yrs old and has shown decline his last 2 years. There is no reason to assume safely that decline would not have continued