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

[Staniowski]

Re: Mark Howe

The main issue with Howe was that he just wasn't a star defenseman for very long.

He played his first six season or so mostly as a forward, and he probably wouldn't have made the Hall as a forward, he just wasn't a good enough scorer. At the other end, his final seven seasons were injury-filled, only played half the time. His first three seasons in the NHL included his move to D, his gruesome injury, and his learning how to play good defense (especially after his injury). So, it was really only the next five seasons that he was a star defenseman. And even then, he was overshadowed by Bourque, Coffey, etc. And other contemporaries, including Chelios, MacInnis, and others were impact defenseman for much longer times than Howe was.

 

[The Panther]

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.

LeClair is the classic example of "reached Hall of Fame level for multiple seasons, but never as the best player on his own team and if he had just maintained it a little longer, it would be nice." (See also: Rick Martin, Tim Kerr.) He definitely has a case, though... I don't deny it.

Certainly his FIVE season-end All Star selections are huge, though of course at left-wing it was a lot easier to rack those up than any other position (for example, Lindros, who was better than LeClair, received only two).

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.

Did Mark Howe shoot your dog or something...? Never heard such enmity for such a universally respected player.

Stanley Cups are bonuses to Hall of Fame careers, but not deal breakers since Cups are won by teams, not players. Anyway, in Howe's cases, in only a dozen seasons as an NHL D, his teams often finished near the top--- twice 1st-overall, three or four times 2nd overall---and he was the top-D on two Conference champs (one going to Finals' game 7), while also being around for the 1995 Wings' Cup run as an old man. All this in 12 seasons from a guy who entered the League on the sad-sack Whalers and then was traded to Philly when they were supposed to be entering a decline.

Indeed, Howe never won a Norris (he had only about 7-8 seasons in his prime as a defenceman), but, c'mon, he finished 2, 2, 2, 5, 6, which is pretty darn great. It's pretty tough competition when your team is 2nd overall, you score 82 points and go +87, and you don't win the Norris.

As far as being a "ghost" in the Finals... really? Howe's job in Cup Finals was not to put up points. His job was to try to shut down peak-Gretzky, which is impossible, but he did better than most. Howe scored 23 points in those two Cup-run seasons with Philly.

 

[crobro]

LeClair should be in.1st and 2nd all star 5 times is a huge accomplishment for a Forward.

 

[ChiTownPhilly]

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.

Maybe I'm an easier grader than you are.

I think the non-fringe cases are sufficiently numerous for it to merit further study and consideration.

Of the cases that I consider non-fringe, I think they can be reasonably split into two groups- Howling Outrages, and Worthy Additions. The Howling Outrages are players that are superior to the "average" Hall of Famer, and would immediately add to the credibility of the place once inducted. The Worthy Additions are those who, although not quite in that class, would do no dishonor to the institution by the inclusion. I wouldn't put any of those players anywhere near the usual suspects for dubious Hall of Fame selections.

In alphabetical order (among players already mentioned)-

Howling Outrages-
Firsov, Holecek, Krutov, Maltsev, Mikhailov, Pospisil, Suchy, Vasiliev

Worthy Additions-
Brewer, Elias, Lehtinen, Petrov, Starshinov, JC Tremblay, Zetterberg

A few names I haven't seen in the thread, yet-
Alexei Kasatonov- I'd put him at the high-end of the "Worthy" group.
Cecil Dillon and Paul Thompson- the top examples of the overlooked Depression-Era Stars subset.

Finally, I found it interesting to see that Brad McCrimmon got no apparent consideration in the 'Top-200' project. Nothing I'm seeing in his Advanced Stats leads me to think he's anything less than "Worthy."

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

Finally, I found it interesting to see that Brad McCrimmon got no apparent consideration in the 'Top-200' project. Nothing I'm seeing in his Advanced Stats leads me to think he's anything less than "Worthy."

i believe it, but are you able to make a case and walk us through it? i am illiterate in fancy stats

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.

those finals were before my time but is someone who is familiar able to add context to the numbers?

at face value it doesn’t look great

 

[overpass]

i believe it, but are you able to make a case and walk us through it? i am illiterate in fancy stats



those finals were before my time but is someone who is familiar able to add context to the numbers?

at face value it doesn’t look great

The 1985 finals were weird. In some ways it was very close for a 5 game series.

The Flyers won the first game and then the Oilers won the next four. Only the fifth game was a blowout.

The Oilers only scored three 5-on-5 goals in the first four games. They had three 4-on-4 goals in game 3 and four PP goals in game 4. So the Flyers were very good defensively at 5-on-5 but fell apart with 4 skaters on the ice.

Howe’s partner Brad McCrimmon was injured and didn’t play. I’m not sure who Howe played with in the final. Going into the finals, EM Swift of SI wrote that Howe had been spectacular in the playoffs, he would play a ton of ice time as the only Philly D who could skate with the Oilers forwards, and the Oilers would dump the puck into his corner to wear him down. I’m not sure how much that actually happened. Paul Coffey was the story after the series, with 11 points in 5 games. I will point out that Coffey and Howe had the same number of 5-on-5 points in the series (one each).

So Howe was playing a lot of ice time without his regular partner, and his team still shut down the Oilers at 5-on-5. Sure he could have had a better series but his team was asking a lot of him.

 

[Crosby2010]

LeClair is the classic example of "reached Hall of Fame level for multiple seasons, but never as the best player on his own team and if he had just maintained it a little longer, it would be nice." (See also: Rick Martin, Tim Kerr.) He definitely has a case, though... I don't deny it.

Certainly his FIVE season-end All Star selections are huge, though of course at left-wing it was a lot easier to rack those up than any other position (for example, Lindros, who was better than LeClair, received only two).

If you told me that there was a player in the late 1990s in the dead puck era that scored 50 goals in three straight seasons and he is NOT in the Hall of Fame....................

But yeah I just don't think he hung around like that long enough. I am past the idea that it was only Lindros that pumped his tires, but the truth be told is that Leclair never had a season on his own that was noteworthy without Lindros, even with the Big E's injuries. It is a bizarre career in a way because we all remember him as that rare tame power forward who was big but not soft who scored a lot of goals. But he was a late bloomer and then didn't age well. So there is just that 5-6 year time frame to judge him by and I don't think he did enough in that time. If Markus Naslund didn't do enough then I don't think Leclair did either.

 

[WingsFan95]

Another forgotten pick I was reminded of is Marc Tardif. Basically the knock against him is like with the NFL and the recognition of a now merged with but still considered "inferior" league.

However the wild thing with Tardif is his NHL stat-line is not exactly a dog turd and he won 2 Cups (albeit on stacked Habs teams).

His NHL stats alone are of course only 401 points and 194 goals in 517 games though this includes 31 goals in 75 games in his 3rd season and 33 in 58 at age 30 and 39 in 75 at age 32 (2nd last season) on relatively mediocre Nords teams. He also made NHL All-Star game in 82 in that 2nd to last season. I think his sample size shows he wasn't exactly a dud in the NHL and the WHA although having some inflated stats was not a completely inferior collection of top talent.

Tardif was arguably the WHA's best player with the top 2 point totals in a season, 2 MVPs and three WHA First Team selections.

I think it's oversimplification to say Tardiff cleaned up in a worse league as he was making progress in the NHL and getting into his prime years and really took off in the WHA his 3rd season there and had declined in his last WHA season. Then in the NHL as noted he wasn't trash but I also think the teams he was on in the NHL pool were significantly worse and we see this in his later seasons with the plus/minus.

So overall his combined numbers:
510 Goals & 1,067 Points in 963 Professional Regular Season Games.
2 League MVPs (WHA), 3 First Team Selections (WHA)
3 Championships (2 in NHL)

I'm not really going to argue for the stats here, I think it's clear he needs to be inducted like some Soviet players were. He represents professional hockey outside of the NHL and it's not a stretch to say you really should put in at least a few outliers when dealing with an all-reaching professional sport. Warren Moon in the Pro Football Hall of Fame along with Kickers and Punters being inducted makes a statement. Tardiff was quite clearly the best player in the WHA's short duration and he showed enough (in my mind) in the NHL to not be a grotesque induction or "undeserving".

 

[frontsfan2005]

LeClair should be in - he was a top player in the league once acquired by the Flyers from the Canadiens in 1995 It took him a while to break out and back problems plagued him beginning in October 2000 until the rest of his career, which hurt his overall numbers, as well as peaking in a low scoring era.

LeClair with the Canadiens: 224 GP, 49 G, 69 A, 118 PTS - Playoffs: 38 GP, 7 G, 8 A, 15 PTS

LeClair from 94-00 with Flyers until his back injury two games into the 00-01 season:
443 GP, 261 G, 239 A, 500 PTS - Playoffs: 74 GP, 30 G, 32 A, 62 PTS
2x NHL 1st Team All-Star
3x NHL 2nd Team All-Star (behind Kariya in all of those years)
1x NHL 3rd Teal All-Star (behind Shanahan and Kariya)

LeClair after his back injury for rest of career:
300 GP, 96 G, 104 A, 200 PTS - Playoffs: 42 GP, 5 G, 7 A, 12 PTS

He also had an excellent international career with the USA:
1996 World Cup - 7 GP, 6 G, 4 A, 10 PTS (2nd to Hull in goals and points in tournament - scored three goals in the final series against Canada, including two in game two, named to World Cup All-Star team)
1998 Olympics - 4 GP, 0 G, 1 A, 1 PTS
2002 Olympics - 6 GP, 6 G, 1 A, 7 PTS (led tournament in goals and named to Olympic All-Star Team)

 

[Staniowski]

I think LeClair and Tkachuk are both very likely to be inducted.

There's still a big backlog of likely inductees: some of the old USSR and CSSR players; several guys from the ' 90s; the retired guys from the 2000s (Zetterberg, etc.); and a big swath of players coming up in the next several years (Price, Datsyuk, Weber, Getzlaf, etc.).

 

[diceman934]

Just under a point a game and not even a mention for hall of fame.
Most points in one playoff series: (19)
Highest playoff points per game average in one post-season by a right winger: (1.94)
Highest playoff assists per game average in one post-season by a right winger: (1.29)
Won the lady Bing no cups but made the finals 3 times.
Play off stat line

1144555100

1005

448

540

988

157

Who is he?

 

[jcbio11]

Bondra absolutely. Glad seeing his name pop up so much ITT.

 

[dalewood12]

I think there's a strong argument for Sergei Gonchar.

As an Assistant Coach for the Canucks, if he were to win a Cup, he would be the first Russian to have his name on the Cup four times.

 

[buffalowing88]

I think there's a strong argument for Sergei Gonchar.

As an Assistant Coach for the Canucks, if he were to win a Cup, he would be the first Russian to have his name on the Cup four times.

I like Gonchar a lot, but he's got a slim chance of even entering the discussion. Zubov got in, so that helps him, but Zubov was also a part of some great teams and had a higher ceiling.

Him being an assistant coach has little bearing on his candidacy.

 

[The Panther]

Another forgotten pick I was reminded of is Marc Tardif. Basically the knock against him is like with the NFL and the recognition of a now merged with but still considered "inferior" league.

However the wild thing with Tardif is his NHL stat-line is not exactly a dog turd and he won 2 Cups (albeit on stacked Habs teams).

His NHL stats alone are of course only 401 points and 194 goals in 517 games though this includes 31 goals in 75 games in his 3rd season and 33 in 58 at age 30 and 39 in 75 at age 32 (2nd last season) on relatively mediocre Nords teams. He also made NHL All-Star game in 82 in that 2nd to last season. I think his sample size shows he wasn't exactly a dud in the NHL and the WHA although having some inflated stats was not a completely inferior collection of top talent.

Tardif was arguably the WHA's best player with the top 2 point totals in a season, 2 MVPs and three WHA First Team selections.

I think it's oversimplification to say Tardiff cleaned up in a worse league as he was making progress in the NHL and getting into his prime years and really took off in the WHA his 3rd season there and had declined in his last WHA season. Then in the NHL as noted he wasn't trash but I also think the teams he was on in the NHL pool were significantly worse and we see this in his later seasons with the plus/minus.

So overall his combined numbers:
510 Goals & 1,067 Points in 963 Professional Regular Season Games.
2 League MVPs (WHA), 3 First Team Selections (WHA)
3 Championships (2 in NHL)

I'm not really going to argue for the stats here, I think it's clear he needs to be inducted like some Soviet players were. He represents professional hockey outside of the NHL and it's not a stretch to say you really should put in at least a few outliers when dealing with an all-reaching professional sport. Warren Moon in the Pro Football Hall of Fame along with Kickers and Punters being inducted makes a statement. Tardiff was quite clearly the best player in the WHA's short duration and he showed enough (in my mind) in the NHL to not be a grotesque induction or "undeserving".

Yeah, I had a thread a few years ago about Tardif and I learned a lot from that. I agree with you that he is more deserving of Hall entry than many we talk about (and many who are in).

I have no doubt that from around 1974 to 1980 Tardif was one of the five to ten best forwards in the world. But I think players who peaked in the WHA automatically face discrimination for Hall entry — especially from today's perspective, where most Hall members can't remember the WHA or only know 1970s' hockey from stats. They naturally focus on the NHL exclusively. Anyway, Tardif led the WHA in scoring twice, and from mid-1975 to mid-1978 scored a staggering 411 points in 221 games (nearly 150 points per season).

Tardif actually did quite well in the NHL, too, though his years in it frame his prime. With Montreal 1970-73, it appears he was on the second or third line — and we know that when Bowman arrived in 1971, he loved his old guys more than young guys — but Tardif scored a solid 85 goals in three seasons, while going +58. He also did well statistically in the '72 and '73 playoffs. He was at the end of his twenties when Quebec got in the NHL for 1979-80, and scored at a 94-point pace that season, suggesting that he'd have been around 10th or 11th in NHL scoring if healthy, even as he was exiting his prime (and playing on a weak team). Injuries seemed to limit him those first two seasons back in the NHL, but even in 1981-82, aged 32, he scored at over a 40-goal pace.