The Hockey Hall Of Fame is voted on by a selection committee. However, let's pretend for a second that it's like the Baseball Hall Of Fame, where the media does the voting. (We'll leave out the part where the baseball media holds vendettas against players and doesn't vote for worthy players because they don't "deserve" to be voted in on their first year of eligibility.) Let's extend the fantasy even further and pretend that The Rivalry is a credentialed media source. Yes, the very site that applied for the NYI Blog Box twice and didn't even get a response is going to decide who is a Hall Of Famer and who isn't.
This is a very important year for the Hockey Hall Of Fame. Thanks to the lockout, there are no new entries this year, which means some of the older players who have fallen through the cracks get a legitimate second chance. And it's a chance these players will need; next year's class will almost certainly feature Steve Yzerman, Brian Leetch, and Luc Robitaille. So, for many of these players, it's get in now or potentially wait a very, very long time.
There are a lot of players out there who get Hall consideration that, quite frankly, don't deserve it. The fine line between "great player" and "Hall Of Famer" grows more blurry each day as the media pressures itself to compare everything in the context of history. So let's clear it up a little. Here are some players who qualify as great, but fall just short of the Hall Of Fame: Glenn Anderson, Tom Barrasso, Adam Oates, Mike Richter, Pat Verbeek, Mike Vernon. Sorry, five hundred goals doesn't get you in if you played in the 80's. Of the goalies, Vernon has the best case of the bunch, but he was never considered the best goalie in the league at any point in his career.
Guys who could be Hall Of Famers, but didn't make the cut?
- Pavel Bure. His numbers compare with Cam Neely's, namely high production in a short period of time. Bure gets high marks for having some good seasons in the Dead Puck Era. However, Neely also brought a physical element to his play, whereas Bure was strictly an offensive player. Bure will get in, probably this year, but there are more deserving guys out there.
- Sergei Makarov/Vladimir Krutov. Having never seen either of these guys in their primes, it's hard to differentiate the two. They were both superstars in Russia when Russians couldn't play in the NHL, but flopped once they finally came to North America. Each is exceedingly deserving of enshrinement in the Hall, but I can't bump two players I know well for two guys I don't know much about.
- Dino Ciccarelli. Dino almost made the cut, but ended up falling just short. No Stanley Cups hurt him, not to mention the fact that, like Vernon, he never stood out as the best player of his generation. Playing in the era Ciccarelli did hurts his chances, but he did score 35 goals for Tampa Bay at the age of 37 in 1997. He'll get in, but the stats show he was just an average playoff performer. Hard to stand out that way, even with 608 regular season goals.
So, then, who gets in? Here are the four guys I'd vote for if my vote actually meant something.
- Igor Larionov. Odds are pretty good that Russian players would have eventually found their way over to the NHL if not for Igor Larionov. But he's the one who made it happen in the 1980's, when it was unfathomable that the Russians would ever join the NHL. Larionov managed to make the NHL a true global league, opening the doors for all of Europe to come to North America to play. We take Europeans for granted now, but Larionov paved the way for them. Oh, and Larionov was also a tremendous player, lasted the longest of any of the original Russians, won three Stanley Cups, and groomed many of the young stars who just won the Cup with Detroit.
- Claude Lemieux. People are going to love this one. So be it. It's absolutely insane that Claude Lemieux isn't in the Hall Of Fame already. A lot of guys have four Stanley Cup rings, but how many of them earned them in four separate tours of duty? People point to Lemieux's lackluster regular season stats, but the NHL is the one sport where the regular season means absolutely nothing. Also, the NHL loves to promote "old-time hockey" as something desirable, so the argument that Lemieux was a dirty player doesn't hold much water. After all, nobody complained when Scott Stevens built a Hall Of Fame resume with tons of elbows-up, open-ice hits. If the mark of a great player is someone who raises his game in the playoffs and wins games, Claude Lemieux has to be included in the Hall Of Fame.
- Doug Gilmour. Gilmour gets lost in the shuffle of the great players and ridiculous stats of the 1980s, but he proved his worth in the early 1990s with the Maple Leafs. It could be argued that Gilmour was the best player in the NHL just before the 1994 lockout, and the stats reflect this. He never won a Cup with Toronto (something that would have sealed his fate as a Hall Of Famer instantly), but did win one with Calgary in 1989 and was part of the 1987 Canada Cup team. Gilmour's physical play is also underrated, breaking the 100-PIM barrier three times in his career.
- Esa Tikkanen. See the entry on Claude Lemieux for why a pesky player who simply won everywhere he went should be included in the Hall. Tikkanen played in the playoffs in thirteen years for six different teams, yet his teams lost in the first round only three times. Furthermore, his teams reached the conference finals in nine of those thirteen years. Imagine that! Four Cups with the Oilers, one with the Rangers, and one Finals appearance with the Capitals. Tikkanen also played a very important defensive role on the offense-first Oilers, yet still managed to average nearly a point per game with the club.
So there you have it. That's a ballot from someone who realizes there's more to hockey than scoring points. In other words, Tikkanen doesn't have a chance and Lemieux is more and more of a longshot each passing year. Gilmour and Larionov definitely get in this year, though, likely alongside Bure and a random straggler (probably Oates).
This is a very important year for the Hockey Hall Of Fame. Thanks to the lockout, there are no new entries this year, which means some of the older players who have fallen through the cracks get a legitimate second chance. And it's a chance these players will need; next year's class will almost certainly feature Steve Yzerman, Brian Leetch, and Luc Robitaille. So, for many of these players, it's get in now or potentially wait a very, very long time.
There are a lot of players out there who get Hall consideration that, quite frankly, don't deserve it. The fine line between "great player" and "Hall Of Famer" grows more blurry each day as the media pressures itself to compare everything in the context of history. So let's clear it up a little. Here are some players who qualify as great, but fall just short of the Hall Of Fame: Glenn Anderson, Tom Barrasso, Adam Oates, Mike Richter, Pat Verbeek, Mike Vernon. Sorry, five hundred goals doesn't get you in if you played in the 80's. Of the goalies, Vernon has the best case of the bunch, but he was never considered the best goalie in the league at any point in his career.
Guys who could be Hall Of Famers, but didn't make the cut?
- Pavel Bure. His numbers compare with Cam Neely's, namely high production in a short period of time. Bure gets high marks for having some good seasons in the Dead Puck Era. However, Neely also brought a physical element to his play, whereas Bure was strictly an offensive player. Bure will get in, probably this year, but there are more deserving guys out there.
- Sergei Makarov/Vladimir Krutov. Having never seen either of these guys in their primes, it's hard to differentiate the two. They were both superstars in Russia when Russians couldn't play in the NHL, but flopped once they finally came to North America. Each is exceedingly deserving of enshrinement in the Hall, but I can't bump two players I know well for two guys I don't know much about.
- Dino Ciccarelli. Dino almost made the cut, but ended up falling just short. No Stanley Cups hurt him, not to mention the fact that, like Vernon, he never stood out as the best player of his generation. Playing in the era Ciccarelli did hurts his chances, but he did score 35 goals for Tampa Bay at the age of 37 in 1997. He'll get in, but the stats show he was just an average playoff performer. Hard to stand out that way, even with 608 regular season goals.
So, then, who gets in? Here are the four guys I'd vote for if my vote actually meant something.
- Igor Larionov. Odds are pretty good that Russian players would have eventually found their way over to the NHL if not for Igor Larionov. But he's the one who made it happen in the 1980's, when it was unfathomable that the Russians would ever join the NHL. Larionov managed to make the NHL a true global league, opening the doors for all of Europe to come to North America to play. We take Europeans for granted now, but Larionov paved the way for them. Oh, and Larionov was also a tremendous player, lasted the longest of any of the original Russians, won three Stanley Cups, and groomed many of the young stars who just won the Cup with Detroit.
- Claude Lemieux. People are going to love this one. So be it. It's absolutely insane that Claude Lemieux isn't in the Hall Of Fame already. A lot of guys have four Stanley Cup rings, but how many of them earned them in four separate tours of duty? People point to Lemieux's lackluster regular season stats, but the NHL is the one sport where the regular season means absolutely nothing. Also, the NHL loves to promote "old-time hockey" as something desirable, so the argument that Lemieux was a dirty player doesn't hold much water. After all, nobody complained when Scott Stevens built a Hall Of Fame resume with tons of elbows-up, open-ice hits. If the mark of a great player is someone who raises his game in the playoffs and wins games, Claude Lemieux has to be included in the Hall Of Fame.
- Doug Gilmour. Gilmour gets lost in the shuffle of the great players and ridiculous stats of the 1980s, but he proved his worth in the early 1990s with the Maple Leafs. It could be argued that Gilmour was the best player in the NHL just before the 1994 lockout, and the stats reflect this. He never won a Cup with Toronto (something that would have sealed his fate as a Hall Of Famer instantly), but did win one with Calgary in 1989 and was part of the 1987 Canada Cup team. Gilmour's physical play is also underrated, breaking the 100-PIM barrier three times in his career.
- Esa Tikkanen. See the entry on Claude Lemieux for why a pesky player who simply won everywhere he went should be included in the Hall. Tikkanen played in the playoffs in thirteen years for six different teams, yet his teams lost in the first round only three times. Furthermore, his teams reached the conference finals in nine of those thirteen years. Imagine that! Four Cups with the Oilers, one with the Rangers, and one Finals appearance with the Capitals. Tikkanen also played a very important defensive role on the offense-first Oilers, yet still managed to average nearly a point per game with the club.
So there you have it. That's a ballot from someone who realizes there's more to hockey than scoring points. In other words, Tikkanen doesn't have a chance and Lemieux is more and more of a longshot each passing year. Gilmour and Larionov definitely get in this year, though, likely alongside Bure and a random straggler (probably Oates).
Sergei Makarov came to the NHL scored 86 points in his first season and won the Calder Trophy. In fact he scored at better than point per game rate his first three years in the league. And yet you claim he flopped in North America?
ReplyDeleteObviously you are correct when you say you don't don't know much about Makarov.
OK, flopped? No. Had his best years in Russia? Yes. My bad.
ReplyDeleteAgreed about Lemieux, he was the main reason a few of those teams won the Cup.
ReplyDeleteAs for Anderson, I think you're wrong.
5 Cups, 100+ points 3 times, one season with 99 points, never played less than 72 games in a season (looking at his stats, he played 85 in 93-94), and he was amazing with game winners, inlcuding 17 in 225 playoff games.
I think Bure could have made it if he had a full career, or if he won a Cup.
By the way, I think Larionov and Anderson made it.
Anderson and Larionov did get in. I just felt like Anderson would get lost in the shuffle of all the great Oilers, and maybe I'm guilty of underrating his credentials. It's hard to go by offensive numbers on a team like that. That said, he was great on the '93 Leafs and '94 Rangers, not to mention all the Oilers teams in the 80s. If nothing else, at least we're spared the annual articles about how Anderson has been blackballed from the Hall due to his child support issues.
ReplyDelete