Making the HHOF case against Pekka Rinne, P.K. Subban and even Alexander Mogilny

The Hockey Hall of Fame will welcome seven new members this weekend, including three players from the men’s side. That’s one fewer than the committee is allowed to induct, meaning they didn’t run out of room; they just decided that some of the bigger names weren’t worthy.

Good.  The Hall is supposed to be tough to get into, and we should be slamming the door on some of the names that just don’t deserve a spot.

At least, that’s the angle we’re taking today. I’m not necessarily a Small Hall guy, and I’ve spent plenty of time over the years making the cases for various stars. But I think there’s value in trying the other side sometimes, if only to force the supporters of certain stars to sharpen their arguments. So today, I’m going to make the case against 10 names that could be front and center when the HHOF committee holds their next meeting.

We tried this a while ago, with a list 15 players. That was two years’ worth of inductions ago, and four names from that piece have got the call: Mike Vernon and Tom Barrasso in 2023, then Jeremy Roenick and Pierre Turgeon this year. Apparently my other 11 arguments were just more convincing.

We won’t be doing any repeats this time around, so check that older post if you want to see my case against names like Rod Brind’Amour, Patrik Elias, Ryan Miller or anyone else you're expecting to see today but don't. This time, the group of 10 will be made up of some names that I left off last time, as well as a few new that are new to the mix. I won’t bother with a few players I think are easy slam dunks, including Zdeno Chara, Joe Thornton and Patrice Bergeron, and we’re not tackling anyone who isn’t eligible until 2027 or beyond, including anyone who's still active.

That still leaves us with plenty of names to consider, including several who’d probably have my vote. Here’s why none of them should make it – just for argument’s sake.

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What was NHL history's worst team to have a bunch of Hall-of-Famers?

I’ve had the Hall of Fame on my mind this week, mostly because it’s induction weekend. That’s the fun part of the calendar that starts with you going “Oh yeah, that’s who they picked back in the summer” and ends with a cool ceremony that honors the game’s legacy.

It’s also a good time to debate that legacy, and argue about bests and worsts and in-betweens. That’s what we’re going to do today.

About a year ago, I wrote a post where based on a simple question: What was the best team that had no Hall-of-Famers? I settled on the 2006-07 Sabres as the winner, in case you’re wondering. You had plenty of your own suggestions, and we wasted the entire day arguing about it, which is what the hockey gods want us to do with HHOF debates.

Today, let’s flip the question: What was the worst team to have the most Hall-of-Famers? That’s a little tricker, just because we’re not dealing with an absolute value like “none”, but I think we can feel our way through some sort of weird ratio of team quality to HHOF totals. We should probably have a cutoff, though. Five? Five sounds good. Let’s find some really bad teams that at least five Hall-of-Famers in the organization.

I’ve come up with five teams that I think make for solid candidates. Have a look, then make your pick and/or tell me why I’m wrong.

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What was the best team in NHL history without a single Hall-of-Fame player?

Today’s time-waster is a simple one: What’s the best team in history that didn’t have a single Hall-of-Fame player on the roster?

A few of you have sent in variations of the question over the years, and it’s a good one. Nice and easy. I’m not even sure we need the traditional bullet-point ground rules.

We’ll do this by decade, more or less, going back to the first expansion. For more recent teams, we’ll obviously have to use some judgment and common sense over who might make the Hall some day. The 2017-18 Capitals don’t have a single Hall-of-Famer right now, but I have a feeling that Ovechkin guy might get in eventually, so we won’t count them. That challenge will get easier as we work back, but never completely go away, since the committee sometimes drops a decades-old selection on us, seemingly out of nowhere. But we’ll do our best, and maybe check in old pal Paul Pidutti and his Adjusted Hockey model for a sanity check when we need it.

With that in mind, let’s give this a shot. We’ll start in the 2010s and work our way back.

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Welcoming the 2024 class of inductees to the Hall of Very Good, which we made up

It’s Hockey Hall of Fame time, which you could be forgiven for not knowing because there does seem to be some other hockey stuff going on these days. But the Class of 2024 will be announced on Tuesday, no doubt sparking another round of debate over who make it, who got snubbed, and why the committee has clearly never watched a single game involving your favorite team.

You know what that means. It’s time to welcome another class to the Hall of Very Good.

We’ve been doing this for a few years now, but let’s refresh your memory on what’s about to happen. Some fans use “Hall of Very Good” as an insult, a way to devalue the career of a guy who may not quite deserve a plaque in the real thing. That’s not what we’re about here. Instead, we’re going to use this space the celebrate the players who presumably don’t have a realistic shot at induction, but were still pretty darn fun to watch in their day.

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The Athletic Hockey Show: The good and bad of the HHOF class of 2023

On this week's episode of The Athletic Hockey Show:
- We discuss the HHOF class of 2023
- The listeners have their say
- Setting the stage for a week of big trades(?)
- I get an excuse to tell the Durno story
- This week in history and lots more...

The Athletic Hockey Show runs most days of the week during the season, with Ian and I hosting every Thursday. There are two versions of each episode available:
- An ad-free version for subscribers that you can find here
- An ad-supported version you can get for free wherever you normally find your podcasts (like Apple or Spotify)

Puck Soup: Hall of Fame before and after

On this week's episode of the Puck Soup podcast:
- Ryan and I discuss who should get the HHOF call, then reconvene and react after the announcement is made
- The OEL buyout, Bratt signing, Karlsson trade maybe coming
- What's the deal with Matvei Michkov?
- We try the Immaculate Grid game, NHL style
- And more...

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Making the case against the HHOF candidacies of 15 NHL stars

It’s Hockey Hall of Fame week, with the mysterious committee holding its annual top-secret meeting on Wednesday, leading to the announcement of this year’s honorees. As always, the top candidates are a mix of slam dunks, borderline newbies, and holdovers from the past whose cases are strong but maybe not quite strong enough.

This is the time of year when I’d typically write a post laying out the strongest arguments in favor of a bunch of players. But there’s a problem with that approach – it just ends in disappointment. With a limited number of spots up for grabs each year, most candidates won’t make it. And that list will probably include some that you feel are deserving, especially if you’ve just seen guys like me pumping their tires to convince you they should be in.

So today, let’s flip the script. I’m going to give you a list of candidates, and then try to convince you that they shouldn’t make it. Yes, I’m switching sides, and arguing to keep stars out. That will be just fine for some of you Small Hall types, and infuriating for at least a few of you when it comes to your favorites. But the important thing is that I’ll be proven right on Wednesday, when the committee agrees with me on the vast majority of these players... and maybe even all of them.

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Paul Henderson? Mike Vernon? Anze Kopitar? It's a Hockey Hall of Fame Mailbag

I unabashedly love Hall of Fame debates. Always have. Years ago I had an editor tell me that HHOF stuff always bombs with readers, and maybe that’s true, but there are a few times a year when I decide to be selfish and do it anyway.

This week is one of those times, because the Hall will celebrate the class of 2023 over the weekend in the lead-up to Monday’s indication ceremony. On Wednesday, we looked at a half-dozen of the toughest calls among active players, with the help of Paul Pidutti from Adjusted Hockey. But some of you wanted to know about other guys, or complain about some of the players who are already in. So today, let’s open up the mailbag and see what else is on your mind.

Note: Submitted questions have been edited for clarity and style.

What about Anze Kopitar? How important is it for him to get to 400 goals? (I think if he stays healthy he’ll get to 800 assists and probably gets to 1,200 points, but without getting 400 goals.) – Sam

Kopitar is interesting because he’s going to be heavily linked with Patrice Bergeron and Jonathan Toews, as the trio of 200-foot centers who really made us rethink how we viewed two-way forwards during the dawn of the analytics era.

Bergeron is a slam dunk at this point, and while the case for Toews is much weaker, he’s probably also a lock because of how much respect he got during the Hawks’ peak. (Remember, he was named to the NHL’s Top 100 players of all time list, when fellow active players like Joe Thornton and Evgeni Malkin weren’t.)

Does that leave Kopitar as the odd man out?

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Giroux? Burns? Kessel? Revisiting some of the toughest HHOF calls among active players

It’s Hockey Hall of Fame time, with the class of 2022 being honored all week leading up to Monday’s big induction gala. Roberto Luongo, Henrik and Daniel Sedin, Daniel Alfredsson and Riikka Sallinen are all worthy honorees in the player category, and the Hall is finally recognizing Herb Carnegie as a builder. It’s a great chance to look back and reflect on some true greats.

It’s also a chance to look ahead, and try to figure out which players might join Luongo and friends in the Hall some day. That sort of debate is half the fun when it comes to a hall of fame, and I’ve never turned down an opportunity to weigh in. One of my favorite pieces to write each year around this time is the one where I take a look at some active players and try to figure out if they’re on a HHOF path.

I’m going to do it again this year, but with a twist. Rather than coming up with new names, I’m going to revisit a half-dozen players that I’ve looked at over the years. Each of them was a borderline call at the time, and each is still active today. We’ll look at where their case stood a few years ago, what’s happened since, and whether they’re trending up or down. Then we’ll head down to the comment section, where you will yell at me about my wrong opinions and be mad that I didn’t include your favorite non-active player in a post that is only about active players.

As an added bonus, I’m also going to enlist some impartial help. Paul Pidutti has developed a model to produce “a comprehensive measure of HHOF worthiness” for players, based on a variety of factors including stats, honors, international play, longevity and peak. He’s been tweeting his player cards from his Twitter account at @AdjustedHockey and his web site at AdjustedHockey.com includes a detailed explanation of how the system works. No model is perfect, obviously, but it’s fun to be able to look at a case from a different angle, and Paul has graciously agreed to check in on our six candidates and share what his numbers say.

---

Phil Kessel

The last time we looked: At the end of the 2018-19 season, Kessel’s last with the Penguins.

The case at the time: Kessel had two Cup rings and a Masterton, had been robbed of a Conn Smythe, plus he was on pace to “cruise by the 1,000-point mark, maybe by a decent amount”. He was also just three years away from breaking the ironman record held by Doug Jarvis.

My verdict back then: I didn’t see him making the cut, partly because I couldn’t see anyone on the HHOF committee really going to bat for him. I did write that “if he can keep scoring near a point-per-game rate for a few more years, he’ll make it interesting”.

What’s changed since: Kessel spent the last three seasons in Arizona, which was great for his poker game but didn’t exactly boost his visibility. His numbers have been OK, but he hasn’t had the sort of late-career boost you might hope for. He still hasn’t hit that 1,000-point plateau and might not get there this season, and 500 goals is no longer in the realm of possibility.

That said, Kessel’s case has two things working for it. First, he’s on the Golden Knights now, and they look like a legitimate Cup contender, so another long playoff run could resurface his case. More importantly, he did indeed break that ironman record, although it belonged to Keith Yandle instead of Jarvis by the time Kessel got there. He’s about to become the only NHL player to ever hit the 1,000 consecutive game mark, which is pretty ridiculous for anyone, let alone a guy who spent his whole career being told he was an out-of-shape schlub.

Which way the case is trending: The ironman record gives him a signature accomplishment to build his candidacy around. But the offensive numbers have slowed more than we’d hoped, and at 35 we can’t pencil him in for much more production like we could a few years ago. Even with the record, I think his chances have dipped.

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The Athletic Hockey Show: King's ransom

On this week's episode of The Athletic Hockey Show:
- The first big trade of the season sees Kevin Fiala head to the Kings
- We react to the HHOF class, and Ian makes his case for Dainel Alfredsson
- Thoughts on the induction of Herb Carnegie and the lack of women
- The chances of us seeing an offer sheet this summer
- Reader mail, this day in history and more...

The Athletic Hockey Show runs most days of the week during the season, with Ian and I hosting every Thursday. There are two versions of each episode available:
- An ad-free version for subscribers that you can find here
- An ad-supported version you can get for free wherever you normally find your podcasts (like Apple or Spotify)