Hall of Fame class of 2023: Projecting next year’s inductees

The 2022 Hockey Hall of Fame class was one of the most satisfying in recent memory because it appealed to so many different types of candidacy.

It gave us the first-ballotters in Daniel and Henrik Sedin and goaltender Roberto Luongo, a trio that took the Vancouver Canucks to within a game of the 2010-11 Stanley Cup.

It gave us the long-overlooked, at least in the minds of some passionate Ottawa Senators fans, in Daniel Alfredsson, inducted five years after he gained eligibility.

It shed spotlight on one of the most dominant women’s players ever in forward Riikka Sallinen, the first European woman ever inducted.

Perhaps most importantly, it righted a wrong in finally, posthumously inducting Herb Carnegie, a potential superstar-level talent who was barred from the NHL during his peak playing years because he was Black, predating Willie O’Ree’s NHL debut. Carnegie went in as a builder.

So what will the Class of 2023 bring? Now that the 2022 group is enshrined, it’s never too early to speculate on who gets the next round of Hall calls.

FIRST-BALLOT LOCK

Henrik Lundqvist
Open-and-shut case for Hank. He’s sixth all-time in wins, 10^th in save percentage, first all-time in handsomeness, five-time Vezina Trophy finalist, Olympic gold medallist. He’s even 16^th all-time in playoff save percentage at .921, just behind Jacques Plante. Lundqvist shared a generation with the likes of Carey Price, Marc-Andre Fleury and Roberto Luongo but, to me, ‘The King’ was the best and most consistently great of the group.

STRONG ODDS

Caroline Ouellette
“It would qualify as a mild surprise if Ouellette doesn’t get the nod on Monday” is what I wrote before the 2022 inductions were announced. I was surprised indeed when she wasn’t inducted, but she still is a lock to get into the Hall soon. She’s one of the most decorated players of all-time, owning four gold medals and four Clarkson Cup titles. She’s a CWHL MVP and a Clarkson Cup MVP.

Jennifer Botterill
Botterill, the first two-time winner of the NCAA’s Patty Kazmaier Award, is a three-time Olympic gold medallist and five-time world champion with Canada, not to mention a two-time MVP at the Worlds. She’s an institution of women’s hockey. It’s a matter of when, not if, for her induction.

Alexander Mogliny
The discourse around Mogilny has gotten loud enough that it might finally be his time come 2023. Not only was Mogilny the first defector from the Soviet Union but, among players with at least 900 career games, he has the second highest career points per game among Hall eligible players not yet inducted. On talent alone, he’s long overdue, a two-time second-team all-star who co-led the NHL in goals with 76 in the 1992-93 season. I don’t think the Russian invasion of Ukraine would damage his chances of induction in 2023 given he’s best known for escaping an oppressive Russian regime.

LEGIT CONTENDERS

Curtis Joseph
Adjusted Hockey’s Paul Pidutti has been the talk of the hockey-debating community thanks to his revolutionary player-card project that is helping lay out players’ Hall of Fame resumes in concise, legible ways. And, wow, does CuJo’s card ever pop. He’s the No. 17 goalie of all-time according to Pidutti’s metrics. Even before those new revelations, he was seventh all-time in wins. My wins philosophy is: “Wins are overrated, unless you have a TON of them, as that means you were really good for a really long time.”

Henrik Zetterberg
When a Hall of Very Good type like Alfredsson gets in, it turns great-but-not-elite players like Zetterberg into virtual locks. The 960 points are impressive enough, but he also was a tremendous two-way forward who took his game to a different level in the postseason. Sometimes it feels like The Conn Smythe Shift in 2008, his Stanley Cup winning campaign with the Detroit Red Wings, cemented his future induction. One possible factor holding him back a year: his better hockey half, Pavel Datsyuk, is eligible for 2024 induction and will be a first-ballot lock. Might the Hall want Datsyuk and Zetterberg going in as a duo?

Rod Brind’Amour
When three-time Selke Trophy winner Guy Garbonneau earned a Hall of Fame induction as part of the 2019 class, it created some momentum for Brind’Amour. He won two Selke Trophies and earned a Stanley Cup ring in 2005-06 but was a much greater offensive threat than Carbonneau. Brind’Amour has 1,184 points. Only three other players who were eligible before this year and not in the Hall have more.

Shannon Szabados
She last played organized league games in 2018-19. Where is the buzz for Szabados. Hello? Two-time Olympic gold-medallist? Two-time best goaltender at the Olympics? NWHL best goaltender? First woman to get a win and a shutout in the SPHL, where she competed against men for 47 games over three seasons? She’s one of the all-time greats. Easy Hall call in my books.

Sergei Gonchar
Playing many of his best seasons during Dead Puck, Gonchar quietly accumulated great offensive numbers. He’s 19^th in goals, 17^th in assists and 19^th in points among defensemen in NHL history. He never won a Norris Trophy, but his stat line is otherwise remarkably similar to Doug Wilson’s. His induction probably helped Gonchar’s case.

Meghan Duggan
Duggan is one of the sport’s all-time great leaders, regularly wearing the ‘C’ for some dominant U.S. national teams, including the one that captured Olympic gold in 2018. She’s a CWHL and NWHL champion. She’s also a trailblazer. She was a vital voice in helping the U.S. women’s team negotiate fair compensation from USA Hockey in 2017.

Patrik Elias
For me, Elias is more Hall of Very Good, but other players with similar resumes have been inducted, so he has a shot. He’s a two-time Stanley Cup winner with 400-plus goals, 1,000-plus points and one first-team all-star selection.

LET ME MAKE A CASE FOR…

Tom Barrasso
Which goaltenders have (a) at least one Vezina Trophy, (b) multiple Stanley Cup rings and (c) more than 350 wins? The list: Patrick Roy, Martin Brodeur, Marc-Andre Fleury, Terry Sawchuk, Jacques Plante, Grant Fuhr, Dominik Hasek…and Tom Barrasso. Let that sink in for a minute. This is the company Barrasso kept in his career. So why doesn’t he get the Hall love? Easy: his personality. He was among the prickliest, most anti-media players of his generation. But that has nothing to do with his ability to stop pucks. In my mind, Barrasso should have been inducted years ago.

Tim Thomas
I can’t take credit here, actually. It was my colleague Steven Ellis who made the case for Thomas having one of the best career peaks of any goalie in recent memory, and Pidutti’s player card supports the case pretty well. Check out Ellis’ argument here.

FIRST-TIMERS OF NOTE

Justin Williams
How much does the Hall of Fame value clutch play? Should Mr. Game 7, the 2014 Conn Smythe Trophy winner, get a look?

Corey Crawford
The two-time Stanley Cup champ was overshadowed by some other superstar netminders in his career but was quietly pretty great. Won 260 games, .918 career save percentage…but, still, there’s just no way you can induct Crawford before Joseph, Thomas or Barrasso.

WORTH ANOTHER LOOK

Keith Tkachuk: The 500 goal, 2,000 PIM club: Pat Verbeek, Brendan Shanahan and Tkachuk.

Jeremy Roenick: More than 1,200 points, one of 24 players with multiple 50-goal/100-point seasons.

Kim Martin Hasson: Great international career. She helped Sweden pull a legendary upset over USA in the 2006 Olympics, where she was named best goaltender.

Theoren Fleury: Better than a point per game despite playing back half of career in Dead Puck.

Meghan Agosta: She fits my definition of a Hall of Famer in that she was the best in the world, or right there, for several seasons. Three Olympic gold medals, 2010 tourney MVP, and she torched the CWHL for multiple scoring titles.

Boris Mikhailov: One of the more rugged forwards on the powerhouse Soviet squads during a career spanning from the early 1960s to the early 1980s. A great goal-scorer, too.

Jere Lehtinen: Three-time Selke Trophy winner as a winger. Very impressive.

Julie Chu: A staple for Team USA who won a ton in the CWHL, Chu was a forward on the national team but played some defense in the CWHL. Her spouse Caroline Ouellette has better Hall odds, but how cool would it be if they got inducted together?

Florence Schelling: The Swiss puck-stopper was the 2014 Olympic MVP in the women’s tourney and also blazed a trail after retiring when she became GM of Bern in the Swiss League in 2020.

Karyn Bye-Dietz: Cammi Granato got the headlines on the late-1990s U.S. squads but Bye-Dietz was a major offensive contributor, too.