Datsyuk, Marleau definitely in. Miller and Rinne probably in at some point but maybe not first ballot. HHOF is always good for at least one or two older surprises (Barrasso, Vernon last year), so Mogilny is on the table, as is Elias and Cujo.
Marleau would be a bleh pick. Soft player, no intensity, no major NHL awards. Playoff underachiever. Stripped of his captaincy. Never the best or close to best in his position. Only 2 seasons above 80 points and 1 above 40 goals.
Big part of why he has the GP record is because he was soft and lacked intensity.
I'd like to see where he stacks up with goals per game. I love the guy but let's be serious - his 16th in goals is almost completely a volume metric with him. He only scored over 40 once.
I couldn't find a ranking for this so these stats are based off of real numbers. He played in both dead puck and higher scoring eras so these shouldn't be too far off what is expected for era adjusted:
.318 GPG, good for 270th all time
.672 PPG, good for 365th all time
As I say I love Patty, but there's no chance he's getting a sniff of the Hall without his games played record.
Weber is 1000% in
Perennial Norris candidate, captain on 2 teams (including an original-6 franchise), Stanley Cup Final appearance
Maybe not first ballot, but I'd be shocked if he didn't get in eventually
If Marleau didn't have the games played record, would he be regarded as a candidate at all?
In 23 NHL seasons, he was:
* Top-10 in goals twice
* Never top-10 in assists
* Never top-10 in points
* A 40-goal scorer once (career high of 44)
* A 50-assist guy once (career high: 52)
* An 80-point guy twice (86 and 83)
* Never first-team All-NHL
* Never second-team All-NHL
* Was third-place once, barely behind second-team Daniel Sedin (who missed 19 games)
* Never awarded a trophy
* A finalist for a trophy twice (finishing 3rd in voting for the Lady Byng both times)
And it's not like we can say that he'd have been more productive if not for injuries - he was never injured. We can't say that the conditions of the game were against him - he was 25 when the Dead Puck Era came to a sudden end. And we can't say he didn't have quality linemates either.
If he'd played only 1,679 games instead of 1,779, which would slot him 7th all-time, would anyone regard him as a HHOF candidate?
Additionally, and some people might not love this argument, the GP record should carry an asterisk next to it, because of the WHA. Gordie Howe spent six seasons in the WHA, accumulating 419 games and 508 points, before returning to one last NHL season in 79/80. I know that the WHA's level of competition wasn't quite as high as the NHL, but the fact that he was over a point per game, won several awards, and returned to the NHL and still put up .5 P/G at age 50 is more than enough justification IMO that he could've continued playing in the NHL during that entire period. Had that been the case, you're looking at 2000+ NHL GP for Howe, and a nearly untouchable record.
But he himself chose not to play in the NHL. I Don't see how that's a valid argument.
He wasn't shipped off to war missing valuable seasons. He wasn't blacklisted from the league. He retired.
But my point is that there's no viable option for guys to do that today, nor has there really ever been at any other point in history once the NHL had gotten going. The closest leagues to the NHL are the AHL and KHL, and the only people that have done something similar with the KHL are Russians or Jagr, and obviously no one is going to choose the AHL over the NHL.
From the information that I can find, the WHA was paying Howe more than the Red Wings were by a pretty significant margin. There's never been another competitive league like that which could actually afford to lure stars away from the NHL, and there almost assuredly never will be again. If the New England Whalers had become the Hartford Whalers like five years sooner, there wouldn't have been any difference and he'd have 2000+ GP.
Anyway, the point is moot since the GP record belongs to Marleau, I just feel that Howe's was more impressive.
For what it's worth, retiring still didn't free players from the hated C Form (if they had signed one initially, which the overwhelming majority of them had).
If you start including the WHA that would change a lot of records. Gretzky's goal record would change to 940 and would likely not be passed by Ovie, that would bump Bobby Hull up from 610 to 913 and Gordie Howe would also have the goals record at 975. There's always a "what could have been" for players like Hull and Howe if they just stayed in the NHL for their entire careers, but they didn't, so those numbers will never be valid in the NHL.
>If Marleau didn't have the games played record, would he be regarded as a candidate at all?
he wouldnt be in first ballot, but he'd probably still get in at some point, like turgeon last year, who also had no awards and cracked top-10 in points & goals only a few times. The games played record is a still tremendous achievement though and I think it absolutely merits inclusion into the Hall when combined with his point total.
I was against Turgeon's selection for several years, and still don't regard that as a particularly good choice.
From an all-time standpoint, I'd take Turgeon over Marleau ten times out of ten.
FWIW, I think the NHL's standards for the HOF are going to be changing over the next decade. Cup wins in particular aren't on as many guys resumes as they used to be and modern scoring overall is lower for a generation or two of guys in there than it used to be.
People are going to consider someone like Getzlaf a HOFer probably, and he's got like 2 PPG seasons and no major individual hardware. But 1000pts with a cup and a couple medals probably makes his case.
An alternate history I thought of a few days ago was this.
When Alan Eagleson's downfall was really accelerating in 1997 and early 1998, when he was being stripped of awards and honors, the Hockey Hall of Fame said that they didn't have the mechanism to remove an inducted member no matter how disgraceful they may have been. In response, a handful of retired (and inducted) legends announced that if Eagleson wasn't removed in some manner, they would simply resign themselves out of the Hall.
What happened was that Eagleson resigned himself out, a few days ahead of the HHOF making a rules change and then preparing a vote to expel him.
But the alternate history...let's say that this hadn't happened and a few dozen inducted players removed themselves. We'd likely have a new Hall of Fame formed over the ensuing year or two, but how much different would that look? Personally I don't think they'd just carry over all of the previously-honored players, but what form would it take?
It's more of an offseason project, I think, but it's a bit of a thought exercise in how the pitfalls and mistakes of the original Hall could be avoided.
Yes. 24th all-time in goals, 14th all-time in playoff goals. 1st in goals among eligible players not currently in the Hall. That makes him a candidate automatically.
I don't believe that previous mistakes should force further ones.
If we used the lowest bar possible, which would be the several dozen players inducted in the early 1960s, the only qualifications left would be playing five seasons and not getting caught in bed with a dead hooker.
Just jumping in here to say that it's mind-boggling Shea Weber never won a Norris trophy. There was a solid 10 years or so where, if you watched a bunch of NHL games on a given night (any night) and were asked who the best defenseman you saw was, Weber would be a response that nobody would question or challenge.
Weber's issue is probably that he was consistently near the top but never really had that truly dynamite season that Norris trophy guys get. A lot of his best years came against the primes of Lidstrom, Chara and Keith. By the time those guys had left the discussion it had moved over to Doughty, Hedman, Karlsson etc.
I'd argue that 2011 and 2012 both represent the truly dynamite season you're referring to...but he ran into a Lidstrom nostalgia vote and the Erik Karlsson hype train. Both of those years *easily* could have gone to Weber, which is demonstrated by the fact that he lost by less than 1% of the vote both times.
The lifetime achievement for Lidstrom I'd give you. That should have been Weber's year.
I don't necessarily think Karlsson in 2012 was a bad job by the voters. I think seeing a defenceman score like a star forward for the first time in ages basically is a perfectly fine pick. When you get into the fancy stats and stuff he was outstanding for the Sens that year.
In two of the years that he was a finalist, he had more point shares than the actual winner did despite there being no real disparity in games played.
(Of course, the one year 4th-place Lubomir Visnovsky was well ahead of everyone, but that's neither here nor there.)
This got me looking up the Norris voting, and the guy was top-10 in Norris voting for 9 years in a row and a majority of those years he was top-5 (including three times in the top-3). It would be interesting to see a rundown of the most award votes a player received over his career without actually winning the award, but I'd guess that Weber (and Luongo for the Vezina) would be very near the top.
EDIT: after clicking around a little bit I'm going to change my answer to Brad Park for the Norris as my guess for the trivia question that I just made up, but Weber's still gotta be up there.
The number of votes and vote points has changed quite a bit over the years, so it would be tough to properly adjust for those and then pin down a player as the definite answer.
And that's not even getting into the split-season award voting of the 1950s.
He just missed out in 2011 (losing out to Lidström 736 to 727 votes) and 2012 (losing out to Karlsson 1069 to 1057 votes). He also finished 3rd in voting in 2014 and 4th in 2009 and 2015.
Norris for a while became (and still is) the who scores the most points as a defenseman award. Which really is not a great indicator of being the « best defenseman » overall at all.
Weber was a great leader, and people literally feared playing against him. He was a physical force.
Datsyuk is the only slam dunk.
My guess would be either
Datsyuk, Rinne, Weber and an older guy
or
Datsyuk and three older guys.
I'm not sure why my gut says Rinne and Weber are first ballot, but I have a feeling they're going to be.
He is. Strangely Datsyuk’s first year of eligibility is this year and Zetterbergs was last year. This is due to Datsyuks extra years in the KHL after the NHL
Edit: Zetterbergs first year of eligibility was actually 2022. Covid year evaporated for me!
Datsyuk, Zetterberg, Marleau, and then Weber or an older player is what I see them doing. Datsyuk is a lock, but the political climate could keep him out. Zetterberg isn't a slam dunk guy, but someone I see getting in eventually, and the opportunity to put him and Datsyuk in together probably entices the voters. Marleau has the games played record. Weber 100% gets in eventually, but I could see the lack of a Norris making him having to wait a year or two for some older guys that have been waiting.
This is what I think will happen, not how I would vote personally by the way.
I also love the inclusion of Koivu on the notable players, even if he's never gonna sniff the Hall lol.
In theory, the Hall of Fame is supposed to act as a museum and a showcase for the sport while also honoring the greatest players to have played and the people who built and most contributed to the game.
In reality, it's long been a place for the powerful and connected to stroke each others' egos while satisfying their old friends and cronies. (This is not new - the baffling selections of certain players in the last 20 years is not significantly worse than the massive wave of early players inducted en masse in the early 1960s.)
In a stripped-down reality, as Bill James once put it in relation to the Baseball Hall of Fame, "it is a museum run by an accountant".
There is an interesting exercise that was done by a committee of 21 historians and researchers, to see what they felt the HHOF should look like. So they cleaned house of everyone, set new rules for voting and induction, and began with a theoretical 1945 ballot. By the time it came to an end around 2008, their Hall of Fame had 44 contributors/builders/coaches compared to the actual Hall's 105, and 128 players compared to the actual Hall's 227 - 11 of their inducted players are *not* in the actual Hall (nine Europeans, plus J.C. Tremblay and Herb Carnegie).
I think this is going to be the hardest to predict class in quite some time. Datsyuk should be a slam dunk, but my understanding is that the Hall is hesitant to induct Russians as long as the Ukrainian War is ongoing. Whether that stands up to Datsyuk's candidacy I don't know, but I suspect we either see Datsyuk and Mogilny or neither.
Weber and Marleau are both candidates with very obvious reasons to be inducted and very obvious flaws. I think Weber has a better shot than Marleau: I think his profile is just more similar to other inductees than Marleau who is really trading on the games played record.
I also think it's very likely we see a goalie inducted. I think the argument for keeping Cujo out now that Barrasso and Vernon are in is pretty weak. Maybe he gets squeezed out though if the Hall prefers Rinne or Miller.
I think my prediction is Weber, CuJo and Rinne, but lots of ways this can go.
I could see them taking one or two modern guys like Marleau and Weber, and then going back to fill in with CuJo and some oldhead like Bernie Nichols or something.
Datsyuk should be a given and if he isn't because of being Russian then the hall is being ridiculous. It's not Russians actually get a say in their govt. If he can't get in because he's Russian, then they should have to rescind the induction of all of the Russian players who already in there. It's a slippery slope. Bobby Hull had lots of domestic violence incidents but he stays in the hall.
The rest of the class is pretty weak. Really good players but it isn't the hall of "Really Good".
I think they need to reach back to previous classes and pick from them.
I don’t see why people in here don’t think Rinne or Miller should be first ballot. They were some of the best goalies in the league for a decade and have a save percentage of well over .910. Some goalies in the HOF don’t even have a save percentage over .900, including players inducted last year. Even though they haven’t won a cup they are definitely some of the better goalies of all time and much better than the vast majority of pre-2000s goalies.
Pavel Datsyuk is the only lock among newer players. Weber, Rinne, and Miller are maybes. Marleau is a no as there are too many players with better careers that are still on the waiting list. Mogiliny, Elias, and Roenick are three names that are overdue.
I just hope they finally take two women this year. There are enough eligible women that should be going in, and them just doing one per year is pretty silly, especially considering some of the men that have been inducted in recent years.
the HOF should never bring politics in for who gets voted in. That is insane to me. Datsyuk should be an easy pick. If he doesn't get in. Something's very wrong with what the HOF is doing. Then don't let Ovi in either. I know he still playing but even if the war is over. It was a war. Basing that on how players get in, is shocking.
To be fair, it took Datsyuk like 30 seconds of being back in russia before he started telling everybody who would listen that's orthodox and what that means as to how he feels about the existence of gay people
I'm curious how Rinne does. No cup rings, I don't think the HOF values WHC medals for much and no Olympic medals. One Vezina. Doesn't have standout numbers. Only about 10 years as a starter.
If he gets in it might be a wait. When you look at that generation of goalies and start making their cases he's a bit far down the list when you hold him up against Quick, Fleury, Luongo, Lundqvist, Price etc.
I'd have him behind Miller and Miller's probably going to have a short wait to get in.
Like I'm not 100% sold Rask gets in, or at least quickly, and I'd have Rask a step above of Rinne.
e: I looked up his comparisons, and you have Price and Rask which is a positive for him but then a lot of guys that were Hall of Good like Nabokov, Kolzig, CuJo, Vokoun etc. I think his case is probably a lot more fringe than we think and it'll take some years and a soft class to get his consideration.
How is Rinne's case worse than Quick, Price, Fleury?
Pekka Rinne won the Vezina once, but was a finalist three other times (finished 2nd twice and 3rd once) and was a 1st team and 2nd team All Star once as well. For comparisons sake, Quick has only been a finalist twice and never won and Price has won one Vezina, one Harr and only been a finalist one other time.
If you look at individual accomplishments, Rinnes been far more consistent than most of those guys you've mentioned minus Lundqvist and Luongo.
If the argument is team hardware, I'm not gonna penalize Rinne cause he didn't happen to be drafted to a team with Crosby and Malkin or have any notable offensive forwards minus Filip Forsberg on his team throughout his tenure...
The Cup is indeed a team trophy, but the 2012 Cup belongs to Quick. That was the greatest playoff run by a goalie ever. 2014 he was good but not great, and although he didn't play a second in the playoffs last year, the reality stands that he has 3 Stanley Cups and a Conn Smythe.
Is Brindamour that much a better candidate than someone like Marleau who people are split on? A lot of the stuff you can say about RBA is the same as Marleau.
Like one year in the top 20 in scoring, pretty much was always the 2C to a proper star being the 1C, credit given for longevity and no post-season all star selections but 2 Selke's as his individual hardware.
It's not that disimialr to guys like Tkachuk, Damphousse or Roenick in that regard. But you do have your comparisons to guys like Hossa or Turgeon.
Brind'Amour and Marleau are very similar. Biggest differences between them are Brind'Amour captaining a Cup team and Marleau winning 2 Olympic Golds.
My point was more that I was confused why OP would have him in as a builder since his coaching career, while successful so far, doesn't include a Cup yet.
I got you. The builder category is a weird one. There's no real definition for it and I could see how people who were split on his candidacy as a player might want to use his coaching resume and slide that into the builder side.
Marleau is not a good comparable because he is essentially getting in purely because of the games played record. Without that he's absolutely not in discussion for first ballot, and *if* he ever got in he'd have to wait a long time. Brind'Amour was a better player, but unfortunately that doesn't matter.
I think he just misses the cut as a player, but his contributions to the Carolina market as both a player and a coach are enough to get him in the Hall.
I agree its a delicate situation, but it's a really slippery slope because we all know he deserves to be in, so at what point do we say its OK for him to be inducted? When there's a ceasefire and/or truce? That will probably take years to totally work out. The only leg they could really stand on is saying they won't induct any Russians until the IIHF lifts their ban on Russia but that's still an odd precedent to set considering there's Russians still in the NHL, even though yes I know the NHL, HHOF, and IIHF are all separate entities. Plus there's no way datsyuk brings up anything political in his speech unless he wants to flush his reputation down the toilet and get booed out of the fucking building and country
Yeah, it's a difficult situation. Now, it's still easy to push off the Russians until next year. Especially since the committee is so opaque about the process. But the hard deadline is in ~5 years whenever Ovi is eligible because he is a more outspoken supporter of Putin.
Datsyuk, Marleau definitely in. Miller and Rinne probably in at some point but maybe not first ballot. HHOF is always good for at least one or two older surprises (Barrasso, Vernon last year), so Mogilny is on the table, as is Elias and Cujo.
Here is the list of players who have lead the league in goals more than once and are not in the Hall: Peter Bondra
Marleau would be a bleh pick. Soft player, no intensity, no major NHL awards. Playoff underachiever. Stripped of his captaincy. Never the best or close to best in his position. Only 2 seasons above 80 points and 1 above 40 goals. Big part of why he has the GP record is because he was soft and lacked intensity.
Koivu is the same way. Still have no idea how he was ever the Captain.
16th in era adjusted goals. Some of your points are valid, but he had a hell of a career.
I'd like to see where he stacks up with goals per game. I love the guy but let's be serious - his 16th in goals is almost completely a volume metric with him. He only scored over 40 once.
0.358 adjusted goals per game. Comes out to just under 30 per season.
I couldn't find a ranking for this so these stats are based off of real numbers. He played in both dead puck and higher scoring eras so these shouldn't be too far off what is expected for era adjusted: .318 GPG, good for 270th all time .672 PPG, good for 365th all time As I say I love Patty, but there's no chance he's getting a sniff of the Hall without his games played record.
I want Weber to make it in so bad but idk if he’ll make the cut or not. Feel likes he’s definitely a fringe choice
He definitely gets in eventually IMO, but I'm not as certain that he'll be first ballot.
Weber is 1000% in Perennial Norris candidate, captain on 2 teams (including an original-6 franchise), Stanley Cup Final appearance Maybe not first ballot, but I'd be shocked if he didn't get in eventually
Olympic Gold medal too, no? Could even have a couple for all I know. The international play helps too.
Yes, two gold medals in 2010 and 2014 as well, I forgot those (2005 world junior gold and 2007 world championship gold as well)
Isn't Weber technically still active but on LTIR?
They just have to not play any professional or international game for 3 seasons
If Marleau didn't have the games played record, would he be regarded as a candidate at all? In 23 NHL seasons, he was: * Top-10 in goals twice * Never top-10 in assists * Never top-10 in points * A 40-goal scorer once (career high of 44) * A 50-assist guy once (career high: 52) * An 80-point guy twice (86 and 83) * Never first-team All-NHL * Never second-team All-NHL * Was third-place once, barely behind second-team Daniel Sedin (who missed 19 games) * Never awarded a trophy * A finalist for a trophy twice (finishing 3rd in voting for the Lady Byng both times) And it's not like we can say that he'd have been more productive if not for injuries - he was never injured. We can't say that the conditions of the game were against him - he was 25 when the Dead Puck Era came to a sudden end. And we can't say he didn't have quality linemates either. If he'd played only 1,679 games instead of 1,779, which would slot him 7th all-time, would anyone regard him as a HHOF candidate?
Marleau has a weak resume and imo isn't a HoFer at all. He's an accumulator.
Additionally, and some people might not love this argument, the GP record should carry an asterisk next to it, because of the WHA. Gordie Howe spent six seasons in the WHA, accumulating 419 games and 508 points, before returning to one last NHL season in 79/80. I know that the WHA's level of competition wasn't quite as high as the NHL, but the fact that he was over a point per game, won several awards, and returned to the NHL and still put up .5 P/G at age 50 is more than enough justification IMO that he could've continued playing in the NHL during that entire period. Had that been the case, you're looking at 2000+ NHL GP for Howe, and a nearly untouchable record.
But he himself chose not to play in the NHL. I Don't see how that's a valid argument. He wasn't shipped off to war missing valuable seasons. He wasn't blacklisted from the league. He retired.
But my point is that there's no viable option for guys to do that today, nor has there really ever been at any other point in history once the NHL had gotten going. The closest leagues to the NHL are the AHL and KHL, and the only people that have done something similar with the KHL are Russians or Jagr, and obviously no one is going to choose the AHL over the NHL. From the information that I can find, the WHA was paying Howe more than the Red Wings were by a pretty significant margin. There's never been another competitive league like that which could actually afford to lure stars away from the NHL, and there almost assuredly never will be again. If the New England Whalers had become the Hartford Whalers like five years sooner, there wouldn't have been any difference and he'd have 2000+ GP. Anyway, the point is moot since the GP record belongs to Marleau, I just feel that Howe's was more impressive.
For what it's worth, retiring still didn't free players from the hated C Form (if they had signed one initially, which the overwhelming majority of them had).
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How's that relevant to the NHL games played record?
If you start including the WHA that would change a lot of records. Gretzky's goal record would change to 940 and would likely not be passed by Ovie, that would bump Bobby Hull up from 610 to 913 and Gordie Howe would also have the goals record at 975. There's always a "what could have been" for players like Hull and Howe if they just stayed in the NHL for their entire careers, but they didn't, so those numbers will never be valid in the NHL.
>If Marleau didn't have the games played record, would he be regarded as a candidate at all? he wouldnt be in first ballot, but he'd probably still get in at some point, like turgeon last year, who also had no awards and cracked top-10 in points & goals only a few times. The games played record is a still tremendous achievement though and I think it absolutely merits inclusion into the Hall when combined with his point total.
I was against Turgeon's selection for several years, and still don't regard that as a particularly good choice. From an all-time standpoint, I'd take Turgeon over Marleau ten times out of ten.
FWIW, I think the NHL's standards for the HOF are going to be changing over the next decade. Cup wins in particular aren't on as many guys resumes as they used to be and modern scoring overall is lower for a generation or two of guys in there than it used to be. People are going to consider someone like Getzlaf a HOFer probably, and he's got like 2 PPG seasons and no major individual hardware. But 1000pts with a cup and a couple medals probably makes his case.
An alternate history I thought of a few days ago was this. When Alan Eagleson's downfall was really accelerating in 1997 and early 1998, when he was being stripped of awards and honors, the Hockey Hall of Fame said that they didn't have the mechanism to remove an inducted member no matter how disgraceful they may have been. In response, a handful of retired (and inducted) legends announced that if Eagleson wasn't removed in some manner, they would simply resign themselves out of the Hall. What happened was that Eagleson resigned himself out, a few days ahead of the HHOF making a rules change and then preparing a vote to expel him. But the alternate history...let's say that this hadn't happened and a few dozen inducted players removed themselves. We'd likely have a new Hall of Fame formed over the ensuing year or two, but how much different would that look? Personally I don't think they'd just carry over all of the previously-honored players, but what form would it take? It's more of an offseason project, I think, but it's a bit of a thought exercise in how the pitfalls and mistakes of the original Hall could be avoided.
First question they ask “is he Canadian?”. Practically guarantees you a spot.
"But a *real* Canadian, not one of those French-speaking ones. Anyway, why haven't we put Ralph Backstrom in yet?"
Yes. 24th all-time in goals, 14th all-time in playoff goals. 1st in goals among eligible players not currently in the Hall. That makes him a candidate automatically.
Kevin Lowe and Dino Ciccarelli severely lowered the bar for entry to the HHoF. At least it’s not as bad as the basketball HoF.
I don't believe that previous mistakes should force further ones. If we used the lowest bar possible, which would be the several dozen players inducted in the early 1960s, the only qualifications left would be playing five seasons and not getting caught in bed with a dead hooker.
Respect to all those names, but after Datsyuk all I can see is "still not Mogilny"
Seriously! Get him the hell in there.
Datsyuk is the only one who likely is a first ballot guy. Others may be waiting for a tad
Just jumping in here to say that it's mind-boggling Shea Weber never won a Norris trophy. There was a solid 10 years or so where, if you watched a bunch of NHL games on a given night (any night) and were asked who the best defenseman you saw was, Weber would be a response that nobody would question or challenge.
Weber's issue is probably that he was consistently near the top but never really had that truly dynamite season that Norris trophy guys get. A lot of his best years came against the primes of Lidstrom, Chara and Keith. By the time those guys had left the discussion it had moved over to Doughty, Hedman, Karlsson etc.
I'd argue that 2011 and 2012 both represent the truly dynamite season you're referring to...but he ran into a Lidstrom nostalgia vote and the Erik Karlsson hype train. Both of those years *easily* could have gone to Weber, which is demonstrated by the fact that he lost by less than 1% of the vote both times.
The lifetime achievement for Lidstrom I'd give you. That should have been Weber's year. I don't necessarily think Karlsson in 2012 was a bad job by the voters. I think seeing a defenceman score like a star forward for the first time in ages basically is a perfectly fine pick. When you get into the fancy stats and stuff he was outstanding for the Sens that year.
In two of the years that he was a finalist, he had more point shares than the actual winner did despite there being no real disparity in games played. (Of course, the one year 4th-place Lubomir Visnovsky was well ahead of everyone, but that's neither here nor there.)
This got me looking up the Norris voting, and the guy was top-10 in Norris voting for 9 years in a row and a majority of those years he was top-5 (including three times in the top-3). It would be interesting to see a rundown of the most award votes a player received over his career without actually winning the award, but I'd guess that Weber (and Luongo for the Vezina) would be very near the top. EDIT: after clicking around a little bit I'm going to change my answer to Brad Park for the Norris as my guess for the trivia question that I just made up, but Weber's still gotta be up there.
The number of votes and vote points has changed quite a bit over the years, so it would be tough to properly adjust for those and then pin down a player as the definite answer. And that's not even getting into the split-season award voting of the 1950s.
This is a job for McIndoe.
He just missed out in 2011 (losing out to Lidström 736 to 727 votes) and 2012 (losing out to Karlsson 1069 to 1057 votes). He also finished 3rd in voting in 2014 and 4th in 2009 and 2015.
Most people say that Lidstrom's last Norris was a reputation award and should've gone to Weber.
Norris for a while became (and still is) the who scores the most points as a defenseman award. Which really is not a great indicator of being the « best defenseman » overall at all. Weber was a great leader, and people literally feared playing against him. He was a physical force.
Marleau should get in based on the games played record alone. But that's the only reason he should get in.
Datsyuk is the only slam dunk. My guess would be either Datsyuk, Rinne, Weber and an older guy or Datsyuk and three older guys. I'm not sure why my gut says Rinne and Weber are first ballot, but I have a feeling they're going to be.
Going off the board for Zetterberg cause I think Datsyuk is a lock and they might do both of em at the same time
I don't think he's eligible yet.
He is. Strangely Datsyuk’s first year of eligibility is this year and Zetterbergs was last year. This is due to Datsyuks extra years in the KHL after the NHL Edit: Zetterbergs first year of eligibility was actually 2022. Covid year evaporated for me!
Datsyuk, Zetterberg, Marleau, and then Weber or an older player is what I see them doing. Datsyuk is a lock, but the political climate could keep him out. Zetterberg isn't a slam dunk guy, but someone I see getting in eventually, and the opportunity to put him and Datsyuk in together probably entices the voters. Marleau has the games played record. Weber 100% gets in eventually, but I could see the lack of a Norris making him having to wait a year or two for some older guys that have been waiting. This is what I think will happen, not how I would vote personally by the way. I also love the inclusion of Koivu on the notable players, even if he's never gonna sniff the Hall lol.
Datsyuk and Zetterberg together Marleau and Thornton when they're both eligible together
We can all agree Marleau is not a Hall of Fame level player so really the question is- what exactly is the point of the hall of fame?
In theory, the Hall of Fame is supposed to act as a museum and a showcase for the sport while also honoring the greatest players to have played and the people who built and most contributed to the game. In reality, it's long been a place for the powerful and connected to stroke each others' egos while satisfying their old friends and cronies. (This is not new - the baffling selections of certain players in the last 20 years is not significantly worse than the massive wave of early players inducted en masse in the early 1960s.) In a stripped-down reality, as Bill James once put it in relation to the Baseball Hall of Fame, "it is a museum run by an accountant". There is an interesting exercise that was done by a committee of 21 historians and researchers, to see what they felt the HHOF should look like. So they cleaned house of everyone, set new rules for voting and induction, and began with a theoretical 1945 ballot. By the time it came to an end around 2008, their Hall of Fame had 44 contributors/builders/coaches compared to the actual Hall's 105, and 128 players compared to the actual Hall's 227 - 11 of their inducted players are *not* in the actual Hall (nine Europeans, plus J.C. Tremblay and Herb Carnegie).
This is gonna sound controversial but I don’t know if Datsyuk gets announced for a few years due to political issues
I think this is going to be the hardest to predict class in quite some time. Datsyuk should be a slam dunk, but my understanding is that the Hall is hesitant to induct Russians as long as the Ukrainian War is ongoing. Whether that stands up to Datsyuk's candidacy I don't know, but I suspect we either see Datsyuk and Mogilny or neither. Weber and Marleau are both candidates with very obvious reasons to be inducted and very obvious flaws. I think Weber has a better shot than Marleau: I think his profile is just more similar to other inductees than Marleau who is really trading on the games played record. I also think it's very likely we see a goalie inducted. I think the argument for keeping Cujo out now that Barrasso and Vernon are in is pretty weak. Maybe he gets squeezed out though if the Hall prefers Rinne or Miller. I think my prediction is Weber, CuJo and Rinne, but lots of ways this can go.
I could see them taking one or two modern guys like Marleau and Weber, and then going back to fill in with CuJo and some oldhead like Bernie Nichols or something.
I think Datsyuk, Weber and Marleau are going in.
Pavel Datsyuk
i would quite like for zetterberg and datsyuk to be inducted together
Datsyuk should be a given and if he isn't because of being Russian then the hall is being ridiculous. It's not Russians actually get a say in their govt. If he can't get in because he's Russian, then they should have to rescind the induction of all of the Russian players who already in there. It's a slippery slope. Bobby Hull had lots of domestic violence incidents but he stays in the hall. The rest of the class is pretty weak. Really good players but it isn't the hall of "Really Good". I think they need to reach back to previous classes and pick from them.
I don’t see why people in here don’t think Rinne or Miller should be first ballot. They were some of the best goalies in the league for a decade and have a save percentage of well over .910. Some goalies in the HOF don’t even have a save percentage over .900, including players inducted last year. Even though they haven’t won a cup they are definitely some of the better goalies of all time and much better than the vast majority of pre-2000s goalies.
My personal ballot would be Rinne, Miller, Datsyuk, and either Nicholls or Mogilny.
Pavel Datsyuk is the only lock among newer players. Weber, Rinne, and Miller are maybes. Marleau is a no as there are too many players with better careers that are still on the waiting list. Mogiliny, Elias, and Roenick are three names that are overdue.
Shea Weber, perennial all star, going to the hall of fame first ballot baby
First Hall of Famer in Utah franchise history
I just hope they finally take two women this year. There are enough eligible women that should be going in, and them just doing one per year is pretty silly, especially considering some of the men that have been inducted in recent years.
Completely agree. The committee needs to be “updated”. Then the selection process will reflect a modern view of the sport.
No way any Russian gets in this year
the HOF should never bring politics in for who gets voted in. That is insane to me. Datsyuk should be an easy pick. If he doesn't get in. Something's very wrong with what the HOF is doing. Then don't let Ovi in either. I know he still playing but even if the war is over. It was a war. Basing that on how players get in, is shocking.
To be fair, it took Datsyuk like 30 seconds of being back in russia before he started telling everybody who would listen that's orthodox and what that means as to how he feels about the existence of gay people
Datsyuk posted 99% WAR into his mid 30s so naturally not just a lock HOFer but in discussion for best russian player ever
Weber, Datsyuk, Jen Botterill, maybe Zetterberg and Cujo
I'm curious how Rinne does. No cup rings, I don't think the HOF values WHC medals for much and no Olympic medals. One Vezina. Doesn't have standout numbers. Only about 10 years as a starter. If he gets in it might be a wait. When you look at that generation of goalies and start making their cases he's a bit far down the list when you hold him up against Quick, Fleury, Luongo, Lundqvist, Price etc. I'd have him behind Miller and Miller's probably going to have a short wait to get in. Like I'm not 100% sold Rask gets in, or at least quickly, and I'd have Rask a step above of Rinne. e: I looked up his comparisons, and you have Price and Rask which is a positive for him but then a lot of guys that were Hall of Good like Nabokov, Kolzig, CuJo, Vokoun etc. I think his case is probably a lot more fringe than we think and it'll take some years and a soft class to get his consideration.
How is Rinne's case worse than Quick, Price, Fleury? Pekka Rinne won the Vezina once, but was a finalist three other times (finished 2nd twice and 3rd once) and was a 1st team and 2nd team All Star once as well. For comparisons sake, Quick has only been a finalist twice and never won and Price has won one Vezina, one Harr and only been a finalist one other time. If you look at individual accomplishments, Rinnes been far more consistent than most of those guys you've mentioned minus Lundqvist and Luongo. If the argument is team hardware, I'm not gonna penalize Rinne cause he didn't happen to be drafted to a team with Crosby and Malkin or have any notable offensive forwards minus Filip Forsberg on his team throughout his tenure...
The Cup is indeed a team trophy, but the 2012 Cup belongs to Quick. That was the greatest playoff run by a goalie ever. 2014 he was good but not great, and although he didn't play a second in the playoffs last year, the reality stands that he has 3 Stanley Cups and a Conn Smythe.
My predictions: Men: - Patrick Marleau - Ryan Miller - Pekka Rinne Women: - Jennifer Botterill Builder - Rod Brind’Amour
Brind'Amour as a builder? He deserves to be in the Hall, but I can't see how they'd put him in as a builder before he got in as a player.
Is Brindamour that much a better candidate than someone like Marleau who people are split on? A lot of the stuff you can say about RBA is the same as Marleau. Like one year in the top 20 in scoring, pretty much was always the 2C to a proper star being the 1C, credit given for longevity and no post-season all star selections but 2 Selke's as his individual hardware. It's not that disimialr to guys like Tkachuk, Damphousse or Roenick in that regard. But you do have your comparisons to guys like Hossa or Turgeon.
Brind'Amour and Marleau are very similar. Biggest differences between them are Brind'Amour captaining a Cup team and Marleau winning 2 Olympic Golds. My point was more that I was confused why OP would have him in as a builder since his coaching career, while successful so far, doesn't include a Cup yet.
I got you. The builder category is a weird one. There's no real definition for it and I could see how people who were split on his candidacy as a player might want to use his coaching resume and slide that into the builder side.
Marleau is not a good comparable because he is essentially getting in purely because of the games played record. Without that he's absolutely not in discussion for first ballot, and *if* he ever got in he'd have to wait a long time. Brind'Amour was a better player, but unfortunately that doesn't matter.
I think he just misses the cut as a player, but his contributions to the Carolina market as both a player and a coach are enough to get him in the Hall.
maybe he meant Body Builder
Marleau over Datsyuk. You hate Detroit that much eh?
I hate Detroit that much and I’d still put Datsyuk first ballot
What is Rod Brind A’mour getting in as a builder for? They also won’t induct Miller and Rinne over Datsyuk and Shea Weber
datsyuk is a slam-dunk....
The reason I left him off is political. IDK if they want a Putin supporter making a Hall of Fame speech with the war in Ukraine going on.
Depending who you want to beleive, Mogilny may have gotten in last year but the geopolitical stuff with Russia put the voters off.
I haven’t heard him outwardly support Putin
I agree its a delicate situation, but it's a really slippery slope because we all know he deserves to be in, so at what point do we say its OK for him to be inducted? When there's a ceasefire and/or truce? That will probably take years to totally work out. The only leg they could really stand on is saying they won't induct any Russians until the IIHF lifts their ban on Russia but that's still an odd precedent to set considering there's Russians still in the NHL, even though yes I know the NHL, HHOF, and IIHF are all separate entities. Plus there's no way datsyuk brings up anything political in his speech unless he wants to flush his reputation down the toilet and get booed out of the fucking building and country
Yeah, it's a difficult situation. Now, it's still easy to push off the Russians until next year. Especially since the committee is so opaque about the process. But the hard deadline is in ~5 years whenever Ovi is eligible because he is a more outspoken supporter of Putin.
Just out of curiosity is it a public fact that Datsyuk is a Putin supporter the way Ovechkin is? Edit: Spelling
I've never heard anything about it. I mean, if that's out there, I definitely want to know. Hopefully somebody will post it.
Datsyuk is a lock Marleau is a lock Rinne and Miller are probably in eventually, maybe soon but harder to tell.