Players that are not in the HHOF that should be inducted?

[Winged Wheel Willy]

So should Pat Verbeek be in then?

He should. Doesn’t have the awe inspiring seasons, but he was an undersized player who played forever and was productive doing so. Members of the 500 goal club should be in and the hall should showcase them. “These are our players that have reached this lofty mark” there aren’t too many.

In addition, tho I don’t like the argument, you gotta be fair: if Lowe is in m, Verbeek belongs too.

Do you disagree on Kovalchuk? Cause his case is the most interesting to me.

 

[MXD]

The whole Tikkanen vs. Elias argument could be distilled down to the following : Is the third wheel of a car more important than the 6th wheel of three different cars.

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

Elias is a very interesting case. He has quite a lot of support right now, so it wouldn't be surprising if he's inducted soon.

But he also might never be inducted. He obviously has team success, which always helps, and he's widely regarded as very good both offensively and defensively. The question is, however, was he good enough at either offense or defense to get attention? His career offensive numbers are good, but he wasn't anything close to a superstar, and he has only one all-star selection. And, on the defensive side, he had very few Selke votes in his career.

He seems like a guy who could be overlooked as time goes on, even though he's pretty highly regarded at the moment.

i think with elias there’s this perception that he was a one-year wonder

but if the voters hadn’t made the unjustifiable decision to vote naslund and kovalchuk as the 1AST and 2AST ahead of elias in 2004, elias would have had exactly the same career but with two 1ASTs. then he has exactly the same career but with double the individual accolades.

to me, elias is a really unique player. yes, brodeur, stevens, and to a degree niedermayer. but how many guys can simultaneously be the go-to scoring forward on a contender (like a real contender, two cups and a game seven finals loss) while also being the swiss army knife to fill any role they need you to fill? to lead the team in playoff scoring on larry robinson teams, including making the play to set up the cup winning OT goal, and then also lead the finals in scoring on a pat burns team?

he’s just a guy imo who was so much more than his resume looks like. people are talking about him like he’s a john tonelli, where really he’s probably closer to ted kennedy in terms of what he was to those devils teams.

and that’s not even getting to the fact that probably no player lost more career legacy to the lockout than elias did.

that said, i ride for tikkanen too. an absolutely unique, one-of-one player. why would it have to be a question of elias vs tikkanen? isn’t it more like elias and tikkanen vs mike gartner and dave andreychuk?

 

[MadLuke]

I feel I am turning around about Andreychuck and Gartner in the hall, Gartner scored over 30 goals in the nhl 17 times, would have been 18 time in a row if not of the 94-95 lock-out. I get the respect it can create with how hard it is too score to just being able to do it, year after year, we can rationalize over the era and so on, never being a top 10 player in the league, but the hall is not that restrictive.

And, goals

1980-81 NHL 48 (10th)

1984-85 NHL 50 (9th)

1987-88 NHL 48 (9th)

1989-90 NHL 45 (9th)

1990-91 NHL 49 (5th)

Not that weak, had the Top-10 100 pts season at least, the big playoff in 92. Not putting in a player named in the Top 100 ever could make things strange.

I get the issue has well, if he is in, Bondra should be obviously, but that more Bondra missing than the other way around.

Player	season	games	adj goals	adj gpg	adj pts	adj ppg
Patrik Elias	20​	1240​	635​	0.51​	1405​	1.13​
Daniel Sedin	17​	1306​	598​	0.46​	1418​	1.09​
Mike Gartner	19​	1432​	812​	0.57​	1401​	0.98​
Dave Andreychuk	23​	1639​	812​	0.50​	1524​	0.93​

some compiling involved for those 2, but they did put a lot of rubber in a lot of nets over a lot of time, we can thing of worst reason to get in than that.

 

[The Panther]

Induction of P. Turgeon in 2023 with one more dropping Mogilny - natural cringe

I can definitely see a case for Turgeon over Mogilny. So i don't really have an issue with that.

 

[DRW895]

I can definitely see a case for Turgeon over Mogilny. So i don't really have an issue with that.

A few better numbers, but he`s Canadian from Quebec, not political asylum from USSR. He didn`t infulence on breaking iron curtain

 

[crobro]

My list of should eventually get in

Rick Martin -Four Post season all star selections

Tim Kerr- one of the most dominant players in history when parked in front of the opposing teams net. 50 pretty much five times .

Carl Brewer one the best at his position during a choppy career due to self sacrifice from the players union

Ulf Nillson and Anders Hedberg

Theo Fluery -He earned it against all odds

DavecTaylor and Charlie Simmer

Mogilny-it’s criminal he’s still not in

HM’s

Nichols
Larmer
Naslund Markus
Damphousse
Bellows
Gary Suter
Dale Hunter
Pat Verbeek

 

[The Panther]

I can't believe multiple posters seriously think Pat Verbeek is a Hall of Famer...

 

[ChiTownPhilly]

As stated before, I think that a project [Top (n) Hall-of-Fame worthy individuals not in the Hall of Fame] would be a worthy expenditure of our time. Hell (and it's possible that I might live to regret saying this) I'd even volunteer to administer the endeavor. [Though I would happily accept help from one or two co-administrators.]

Upon reflection, I further mused "what are the obstacles to the Hall-excluded?" I can come up with three factors-

1) Just not good enough
2) Intransigence
3) Ignorance

(There is a 4th factor... and that's the 'holding' of an induction so that a joint one with a teammate or countryman can be synthesized [I think that's happening with Zetterberg right now]- but the three above are the major ones.)

Clearly, all three factors can come into play in various degrees... but for the sake of illustration-

Just not good enough- Brian Bellows, Pat Verbeek.

Intransigence- here, the best example comes from another sport. Kurt Schilling had a better career than the 'average' Baseball HoF pitcher, but is excluded for non-baseball reasons. It's not like he wasn't good enough- AND it's not like we're ignorant about what he accomplished on-the-field. Now- I'm not currently discussing whether intransigence in this instance is a good or bad thing- we all have our deal-breaking perspectives concerning away-from-competition comportment (of which Graham James and Alan Eagleson are among the most egregious hockey examples)- but when intransigence manifests, we should recognize it as such. Don Cherry and Theo Fleury best fit in the "intransigence" column. Roenick, too.

Ignorance- the non-NHL Euros may most clearly be placed in the "ignorance" file. [Although in the case of Mikhailov and Suchý (especially Mikhailov), there's likely a healthy serving of intransigence in there, as well.] Firsov and Martinec may be counted among the choicest examples of the bar erected by ignorance.

Those who've encountered 12-step know the "serenity" prayer: courage to change what we can, serenity to endure what we can't change, and wisdom to know the difference.

Of the usual examples of the worthy Hall-of-Fame excluded, it would be interesting to grade them out on a 0-5 scale for: (Voters Judge) Inadequate/(Voters Are) Intransigent/(Voters Are) Ignorant. [Sample off-the-cuff name... Firsov: Inadequacy 0-1, Instransigence 2-3, Ignorance 5. [if the knob went up to six, I'd turn it there-- but you get the point.]

For us to recognize Firsov as Hall-of-Fame worthy just requires the opening of previously-closed eyes. To advance the fortunes of Theo Fleury would need the changing of hearts. That's a much tougher task.

 

[MXD]

Intransigence- here, the best example comes from another sport. Kurt Schilling had a better career than the 'average' Baseball HoF pitcher, but is excluded for non-baseball reasons. It's not like he wasn't good enough- AND it's not like we're ignorant about what he accomplished on-the-field. Now- I'm not currently discussing whether intransigence in this instance is a good or bad thing- we all have our deal-breaking perspectives concerning away-from-competition comportment (of which Graham James and Alan Eagleson are among the most egregious hockey examples)- but when intransigence manifests, we should recognize it as such. Don Cherry and Theo Fleury best fit in the "intransigence" column. Roenick, too.

... Then again, neither of Fleury or Roenick (or Mogilny) really HAVE to be in the Hockey Hall of Fame. There's no injustice whatsoever in these players not being in the Hockey Hall of Fame. They'd make decent lower-quartile inductees, they wouldn't be out of place, they wouldn't be Mike Vernon, but they absolutely don't have to be there either.

Take Jarome Iginla (all-in-all, probably a second quartile HHOFer) and give him all of Theoren Fleury's baggage, he's still in the Hockey Hall of Fame. Take Theoren Fleury and give him all of Jarome Iginla's baggage, and he isn't necessarily in the Hockey Hall of Fame, though his chances would probably be better.

 

[WingsFan95]

The bar has been lowered just about 3 times since the dawn of the century.

I'm happy for all the inductees really. And I'm even happier there's been a ton of guys now I wanted to see go in and finally did (Barasso, Lowe, Doug Wilson to name a few).

For me the stand out now is Peter Bondra, who I'd have put in ahead of several guys. I think him being kinda quiet, a Slovak and not having much team success has held him back. I certainly hope it's a matter of time.

I also throw in these deserving candidates:
Curtis Joseph
The Beezer (probably in with a 2nd Vezina but lost to Hasek)
Tkachuk (US player)

And Bernie Nicholls who I'm going to take a minute to rant about here. On the surface he only has 3 All-Star Game appearances and 2 Top 10 goal scoring seasons but can't get past that even WITH Gretzky it's tough to ignore him as one of a very few 70 goal scorers. 1994-95, after a season and a half with the Devils he signs as an FA elsewhere, now I don't know if he could have stayed with Jersey but they win the Cup in any case IF he's on the team. Now maybe that doesn't shift things too much for him but he could have conceivably won with another team in the 90s and perhaps somehow being on 2 Cup winning teams and a 70 goal scorer slides him in. Outside of his Gretzky year he actually put up a pair of 40 goal seasons on some pretty crap teams and was scoring 30 goal pacing into his 30s on a per game basis. I think injuries really ditched his career numbers. I certainly don't think he's worse than say Ciccarelli.

If Roenick had retired at the lockout he'd be in already IMO. Those last 4 years of horrible from him post lockout is really damaging to his case. Roenick after 2004 was at 475-645-1120 (0.996 PPG) The 4 seasons of being garbage on the ice really soured the view on him. The voters and fans have that as the lasting image instead of his accomplishments and dropped his career PPG down to 0.89

9-13-22, -5 in 58
11-17-28, -18 in 70
14-19-33, -8 in 69
4-9-13, -1 in 42

edit: and my answer every time this comes up, Rick Middleton

I agree on those 4 drup years but he was Cup chasing quite obviously. I personally think of him as a lesser Mogilny so unless it's about Russian bias I think he can't go in ahead of Mogilny. He's obviously behind him in top performance seasons and Mogilny has him in Cups 1>0 and Finals 2>1. Mogilny also dealt with most injuries whereas Roenick after 96 when overall scoring went down didn't really rebound and seemed to rely more on raw speed.

Peter Bondra needs to be inducted. During the 10 year dead puck era (93/94 - 03/04) only Jagr had more goals than Bondra and he led the league in goals twice and had the most shorthanded goals during this span as well. He is 13th All-Time in era adjusted goals per game (tied with Selanne and Beliveau). He won a World Championship and is one of the best Slovakian players of all time. He wasn't drafted to the NHL until he was 22 and would likely have over 600 goals if it hadn't been for seasons lost entirely or shortened due to lock-outs.

Preach brother. I think Bondra is well overdue. He deserves to go in as is but can't help shake some small margins. Doubly sucks he faced Pens in both 91-92 I mean common. He could have had a 60 goal season if not for missed time in 96 and then coming to the Sens a year earlier who knows maybe wins a Cup in 03.

 

[The Macho King]

Other than the Soviet-era players mentioned earlier, I don't really have any omissions that need to be in right now.

But because I want to tangent....

Why the hell did Mark Howe have to wait so long? Inducted in 2011, and last played in 1995. That one is weird for me.

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

Take Jarome Iginla (all-in-all, probably a second quartile HHOFer) and give him all of Theoren Fleury's baggage, he's still in the Hockey Hall of Fame. Take Theoren Fleury and give him all of Jarome Iginla's baggage, and he isn't necessarily in the Hockey Hall of Fame, though his chances would probably be better.

i’m not sure about that

iginla with fleury’s baggage? sure of course

but fleury with iginla’s reverse-baggage? i think he’s in within his first three years of eligibility. his resume is borderline, but he was singularly memorable in a way few players were. longtime canadian team star, inspirational story, multiple best on best golds, enormous big game reputation, i think it’s a no brainer. especially because fleury also knew all the same old boys just as intimately as jarome does. lanny mcdonald was his first captain.

put it this way, fleury probably has a better case than lafontaine but lafontaine was squeaky clean and was a charity work legend, while fleury knew where all the old boys’ bodies were buried. so lafontaine got in without anybody batting an eye and fleury’s waiting until a bunch of old dudes with skin in the game die.

 

[MXD]

i’m not sure about that

iginla with fleury’s baggage? sure of course

but fleury with iginla’s reverse-baggage? i think he’s in within his first three years of eligibility. his resume is borderline, but he was singularly memorable in a way few players were. longtime canadian team star, inspirational story, multiple best on best golds, enormous big game reputation, i think it’s a no brainer. especially because fleury also knew all the same old boys just as intimately as jarome does. lanny mcdonald was his first captain.

put it this way, fleury probably has a better case than lafontaine but lafontaine was squeaky clean and was a charity work legend, while fleury knew where all the old boys’ bodies were buried. so lafontaine got in without anybody batting an eye and fleury’s waiting until a bunch of old dudes with skin in the game die.

Hehhh... I wouldn't say quite say so. At some point, Lafontaine looked legitimately like the second best forward in the game. Fleury never came close to close to that.

I also didn't quite thought about Iginla's positive baggage when making my post; I wanted to use a very obvious, but otherwise not Gretzky-obvious or even Sakic-obvious HHOFer, and Iginla was the first name that came to mind, possibly due to position + Calgary Flames. I suppose Martin St-Louis could also be a good comparative point, but frankly, to me, St-Louis has the even better off-ice baggage, possibly because I don't give a flying f*** about Canaaaaaadian fairy tales.

 

[WingsFan95]

Actually had to come back here to bring up Claude Lemieux. I mean if I'm forgetting him constantly that's saying something right? But he sticks out I think deservingly so when considering winning which in EVERY league stands for something.

His regular season stats aren't even that bad to be quite honest before getting into his playoff legacy:

379 Goals, 786 Points
Five 30 goal seasons including one at 41 and 39 and excluding a 29 (in 69) and two 27 goal seasons
3rd x2 & 4th in game winning goals

It's certainly not great with 1 All-Star but it's not putrid and then of course the playoff numbers:

Twice leading in goals and one scoring 10, eight campaigns of 10+ points
Conn Smythe
4 Rings
Additional Final and 4 Conference Final appearances

Career 80 Playoff Goals sitting 9th (8th after first retirement)
Career 19 GWG only behind Gretzky & Hull who both have 24


And he's currently the only 4 time Cup Champion NOT in the Hall who was a substantial part of the teams he played on and 1 of 2 who won a Smythe the other being Butch Goring, which just looking at raw regular season stats I've heard him compared to as a counter however Lemieux obliterates Goring in terms of overall playoff careers. In actuality Goring was a much smaller piece in the 3rd and 4th Cup runs to the point of being easily replaceable in comparison to Lemieux. Even more to the point in none of the Islanders 4 consecutive titles would his absence have resulted in likely loss of that title whereas in Lemieux's case there's a very strong argument he was integral to 2 Cup runs if not 3. Funny enough I think him having a 5th ring would make things impossible to ignore like some Oilers but unfortunately he was that close.

 

[MXD]

Actually had to come back here to bring up Claude Lemieux. I mean if I'm forgetting him constantly that's saying something right? But he sticks out I think deservingly so when considering winning which in EVERY league stands for something.

His regular season stats aren't even that bad to be quite honest before getting into his playoff legacy:

379 Goals, 786 Points
Five 30 goal seasons including one at 41 and 39 and excluding a 29 (in 69) and two 27 goal seasons
3rd x2 & 4th in game winning goals

It's certainly not great with 1 All-Star but it's not putrid and then of course the playoff numbers:

Twice leading in goals and one scoring 10, eight campaigns of 10+ points
Conn Smythe
4 Rings
Additional Final and 4 Conference Final appearances

Career 80 Playoff Goals sitting 9th (8th after first retirement)
Career 19 GWG only behind Gretzky & Hull who both have 24


And he's currently the only 4 time Cup Champion NOT in the Hall who was a substantial part of the teams he played on and 1 of 2 who won a Smythe the other being Butch Goring, which just looking at raw regular season stats I've heard him compared to as a counter however Lemieux obliterates Goring in terms of overall playoff careers. In actuality Goring was a much smaller piece in the 3rd and 4th Cup runs to the point of being easily replaceable in comparison to Lemieux. Even more to the point in none of the Islanders 4 consecutive titles would his absence have resulted in likely loss of that title whereas in Lemieux's case there's a very strong argument he was integral to 2 Cup runs if not 3. Funny enough I think him having a 5th ring would make things impossible to ignore like some Oilers but unfortunately he was that close.

Hehhh, the big problem with Lemieux being, I don't think your team could make the playoffs if he was amongst your four best players.

 

[MadLuke]

He did lead the 1992 playoffs Chris Terreri Devils in scoring, outside Scott Stevens (Niedermayer-Brodeur were yet to be activated), to be fair almost everyone were making the playoff back then, did not mean that much when you had 16 out of 22 in, but they finished 7 overall.

 

[WingsFan95]

Hehhh, the big problem with Lemieux being, I don't think your team could make the playoffs if he was amongst your four best players.

Okay but what exactly is the margin between a Top 4 and a Top 6? Especially for that era.

In 96 he was arguably the 3rd most important offensive player wedged with Kamensky (lot more EV goals though) and you obviously have Roy in net and depends how you look at the defense with Foote and Ozo (lol defense). in 86 for the Habs he comes in late for the regular season but in playoffs he's clearly in that Top 6 value outside of Roy and of course the team is deep so it's hard to argue but Roy is the backbone obviously while Naslund is arguably the only more offensively reliable star than a young Lemieux. The following regular season he's 2nd in goals and 3rd in points. The team makes the Conference Finals.

Your point is just about playoffs when it's rather clear just from these 3 examples (there are more) him being in the Top 6 value on the roster the team probably advances in the playoffs. Or am I wrong?

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

Hehhh... I wouldn't say quite say so. At some point, Lafontaine looked legitimately like the second best forward in the game. Fleury never came close to close to that.

I also didn't quite thought about Iginla's positive baggage when making my post; I wanted to use a very obvious, but otherwise not Gretzky-obvious or even Sakic-obvious HHOFer, and Iginla was the first name that came to mind, possibly due to position + Calgary Flames. I suppose Martin St-Louis could also be a good comparative point, but frankly, to me, St-Louis has the even better off-ice baggage, possibly because I don't give a flying f*** about Canaaaaaadian fairy tales.

i honestly think lafontaine has become very very overrated as time goes on, partially due to 1.5 years of really really eye-popping stats but also because he was a super exciting and likeable player.

fleury, imo, was even more exciting and likeable, before his demons caught up with him.

fleury vs lafontaine, i guess i’d look at like this:

lafontaine has 1.5 years of untouchable offensive production. was he the second best forward in the game? maybe numerically, but this is a time where gretzky is still putting up a 40 pt playoffs, gilmour is peaking, and i will always argue that ’92 and ‘93 mogilny was lafontaine’s equal in almost every regard, and the only difference between their production is mogilny’s suspension in ’92 and the fact that as the center lafontaine got more touches on the PP.

fleury’s best 1.5 years are his 1991 season (8th in scoring/led the league in +/-, 2nd in goals, 5th in hart and selke voting), and the half year in new york where as of jan 22, he was second in scoring, between sakic and jagr in the same amount of games. a month earlier, he was solidly leading the league in scoring, 49 pts in 34 games, a 118 pt pace (same number as hart trophy sakic finished with). then of course his life fell apart.

lafontaine	fleury
1990: 105 (8th) 1988: 92 (16th) 1989: 88 (18th) 1996: 91 (22nd) 1991: 85 (22nd) 1987: 70 (50th) 1998: 62 (36th) 1985: 54 (109th) 1986: 53 (123rd)	1995: 58 (in 47 games, 6th) 1999: 93 (7th) 1998: 78 (11th) 1996: 96 (17th) 1993: 100 (20th) 1994: 85 (26th) 1997: 67 (36th) 2000: 64 (41st) 2002: 63 (42nd) 1992: 73 (47th) 1990: 66 (70th)

fleury can’t touch lafontaine’s one peak season, at least equals the other half season, but there’s just a lot more meat on fleury’s career otherwise.

but one guy played in the 80s/early 90s, the other played out half his prime in the DPE, and so the raw numbers look very misleading.

 

[MadArcand]

Fleury's numbers themselves are just about good enough, but to me he far transcended them as far as fame and legendary status goes. He was literally the smallest player in the league for a long while, yet played like a berserker. I'm sure he must've been tremendously inspirational to a lot of short guys out there, showing them that one can become a star regardless of height.

This card literally couldn't sum up Fleury any better.

 

[WingsFan95]

Completely sidelined by John LeClair today. Look at his career stats, not bad but then you notice he made 5 NHL All-Star Teams (not the tacky ones, the end of year) making three 2nd team and two 1st team. That along with being a Cup champion as a contributor and an Olympic Silver Medal with NHL players in 2002, and yeah he's above some guys already in. Also as an American, I know Tkachuk gets brought up but Tkachuk I think only had 2 Team selections.

 

[Run the Gauntlet]

Other than the Soviet-era players mentioned earlier, I don't really have any omissions that need to be in right now.

But because I want to tangent....

Why the hell did Mark Howe have to wait so long? Inducted in 2011, and last played in 1995. That one is weird for me.

Never won a Norris.
Never won a Stanley Cup
Did not play 1000 games in the NHL.
Was a ghost in 2 Stanley Cup finals.
gp g. a. p. +-
12. 1 2. 3. -5
Not the resume of someone that has to be put in the HOF at warp speed.

 

[jigglysquishy]

If anything, this thread demonstrates there are very few "can't miss" guys that are out. The whole thread is about edge cases.

For me, the only true "can't miss" guys that are out are Weldy Young, Boris Mikhailov, and Anatoli Firsov. All are shoe in guaranteed have to be in kind of guys.

Fleury or Roenick are classic edge cases.

 

[VanIslander]

The whole Tikkanen vs. Elias argument could be distilled down to the following : Is the third wheel of a car more important than the 6th wheel of three different cars.

6th wheel of a car? The metaphor is whack, but let's humor it.

That 6th wheel is assuredly useful on different vehicles, though most valuable on a long-haul semi that goes farther due to that wheel's durability, and the fact that its all-weather tread gets the truck out of ditches and through storms.

(On the other side of the metaphor, no one wants to be a third wheel. Heck, that imported tire wasn't even on a front-wheel drive model; but it did its job until the wheels fell off.)

 

[Staniowski]

i think with elias there’s this perception that he was a one-year wonder

but if the voters hadn’t made the unjustifiable decision to vote naslund and kovalchuk as the 1AST and 2AST ahead of elias in 2004, elias would have had exactly the same career but with two 1ASTs. then he has exactly the same career but with double the individual accolades.

to me, elias is a really unique player. yes, brodeur, stevens, and to a degree niedermayer. but how many guys can simultaneously be the go-to scoring forward on a contender (like a real contender, two cups and a game seven finals loss) while also being the swiss army knife to fill any role they need you to fill? to lead the team in playoff scoring on larry robinson teams, including making the play to set up the cup winning OT goal, and then also lead the finals in scoring on a pat burns team?

he’s just a guy imo who was so much more than his resume looks like. people are talking about him like he’s a john tonelli, where really he’s probably closer to ted kennedy in terms of what he was to those devils teams.

and that’s not even getting to the fact that probably no player lost more career legacy to the lockout than elias did.

that said, i ride for tikkanen too. an absolutely unique, one-of-one player. why would it have to be a question of elias vs tikkanen? isn’t it more like elias and tikkanen vs mike gartner and dave andreychuk?

Elias should have a good chance to be inducted sometime in the next several years but, again, there's a possibility it doesn't happen for a while, and a possibility it never happens.

The potential problems with his candidacy are related to the ways you describe him...things like "much more than his resume looks like" and "Swiss army knife"....if people who didn't see Elias play start to look at his resume, they hear about a player who's a really good all-around player, but see a guy with very few Selke votes in his career and literally the worst faceoff winnng % in recorded NHL history (of players with at least 5000 faceoffs).

But his reputation is very good right now, so he'll have a good chance.