It's very difficult to describe how I feel about the more recent Classes of Inductees, but what I can say is that they seem to be getting increasingly political. I find it very hard to believe that Shea Weber and Pavel Datsyuk are more deserving of the 2024 HHOF induction than Alexander Mogilny and Theoren Fleury, as I believe they are amongst the great players left behind unfairly from the Hall for various reasons. What's more concerning, however, is that this year 1 member of the Class of 2024 is on the Selection Board.
The reasons for Alexander Mogilny being left off the list again this year doesn't make sense, as his resume stacks up against many players already inducted. For instance, of all the players who played 1000 games or less, he ranks 4th on that list in goals, 5th in points, and 8th with 66 game-winning goals. Everyone above him in those categories is in the Hall already, and many below him are in as well. For instance, Pat LaFontaine, his old teammate in Buffalo, is in, Paul Kariya is in, Connor McDavid is guaranteed a spot when he retires, Maurice Richard is in, and Pavel Datsyuk got chosen over him. Mogilny has also won several awards, having become a part of the Triple Gold Club by winning an Olympic Games gold medal in 1988, a World Championship Gold in 1989, and a Stanley Cup in 2000. He's a 6-time NHL All-Star, a 2-time 2nd All-Star member, a 76 goal-scorer in 1993, the 2003 Lady Byng winner, and was the best forward in the 1988 World Junior Championships.
As for Theoren Fleury, I believe his political opinions don't sit well with many of the people, but I also think that the NHL would be heavily scrutinized with his name being talked about again. The truth is, the NHL failed him many times in his career, especially later on, when he was with the New York Rangers. He failed 13 straight drug tests, which the NHL has denied, but that Fleury confirmed in his autobiography, and instead of putting him in rehab earlier on, they ignored his problems because he was a scorer. These are issues I would like to dive deeper into in another article one day, but that's enough for now. He scored 100 points in a season twice, he won the Plus-Minus award for 1990-91 with a +48, he won the 1989 Stanley Cup, won Gold at the 1988 World Junior Championships, at the 1991 Canada Cup, and he won Gold at the 2002 Olympics. He also was an effective 2-way player on what became some horrendous Calgary teams, while scoring 1088 points. As good as Shea Weber was, he never won a Norris Trophy in a league that to me seemed at times barren of superstar defensemen.
I'm glad they inducted Jeremy Roenick, but the media has been unfair to him since he retired. NBC Sports unfairly fired him in 2020, and the league turned its back on him when he called out the fans for being a bunch of ungrateful bastards. He is more than getting his dues paid from the game by them recognizing his greatness for the HHOF. He is one of the best players to never win an individual award or a Stanley Cup.
I mentioned Pavel Datsyuk earlier while trying to make a case for Mogilny to be inducted. This was not as a slight to him, but as a compliment to Mogilny. Having watched the later stages of his career, I didn't get to see the best of him, but he was still amazing to watch. I would go as far as to say his stickhandling was better than Connor McDavid's. His stick skills are the best of anyone's that I've seen, as he would beat goalies before he'd score, and he didn't chase points at the expense of team defense. He won 3 Selke Trophies, 4 straight Lady Byngs from 2006-2009. He is arguably the biggest steal of the 1998 Draft, as he was chosen 171st overall by the 2-time defending champion Red Wings. His 2 Stanley Cups bode well with the Hall, the first one as a fourth liner, and the 2nd as a key contributor. He is one of 3 players to win both the Selke and the Lady Byng in his career, the other 2 being Anze Kopitar and Ron Francis, so to be compared to those 2 is something incredible. He also won the final Plus-Minus award in 2008 and captained Team Russia to Gold in the 2018 Olympic Games. He is by far the most deserving member of the Class of 2024.
As for the two female players nominated this year, Natalie Darwitz and Krissy Wendell-Pohl, they are deserving of their positions. Natalie Darwitz has such a resume that it's hard to tell whether or not she deserves to get in as a Player or a Builder. In international competition, she won 3 Gold medals at the Women's World Championships, and won Gold twice at the 4 Nations Cup tournament. She had 39 goals and 72 points in 50 games internationally, and had 102 goals and 246 points in 99 games played for the Minnesota Golden Gophers. In 2005 she won the Bob Allen Women's Player of the Year Award, awarded by USA Hockey, and won the NCAA Frozen Four Most Outstanding Player. She also got inducted into the IIHF Hall of Fame as a player this year. Her record as a Builder may not quite be enough, but she led the Hamline University Women's team to a 3rd place finish in the entire country. She was also the first GM in Minnesota in the PWHL, and led them to a Walter Cup before stepping down. I predict she will be one of those rare superstar players who carries that success off the ice as a coach or a GM.
Krissy Wendell-Pohl was so good that when she was younger, she was able to play on boys teams until 1998. In 2000, she led Park Center High School in Minnesota to a state championship, and in 2 seasons in 1998-99 and 1999-00, she had 219 goals and 314 points. She is the school's all-time leading scorer to this day, and for those who don't know, in Minnesota high school hockey is bigger than the Minnesota Wild. At the University of Minnesota, she played 3 seasons, and in her final year in 2004-05, she had 43 goals and 104 points and was awarded the Patty Kazmaier Award as top female player in US college hockey. in 147 games representing America, she had 106 goals and 247 points. She won the Bob Allen Women's Player of the Year in 2001, and the Bob Johnson Award for international excellence in 2000 and 2005, and captained team USA to a bronze medal in the 2006 Olympic Winter Games. In 2021, she was hired by the Pittsburgh Penguins as an amateur scout.
I saved the Builders for last, as I am not particularly happy with the 2 choices for this year's, and in one of them there's a clear conflict of interest. David Poile is in after having been the only GM in NHL history to win 500 games and manage a team for 1000 games for 2 different teams, first with Washington from 1982-1997, and then in Nashville from 1997-2023. I will give him credit for putting 2 different cities on the roadmap in hockey, as the Washington Capitals' existence was teetering on the brink of relocation due to endless losing seasons from their inception, and he made them a contending team, and built most of their 1998 Stanley Cup Finalist team before leaving for the new expansion team in Nashville, and until 2023 had served as the only GM in Predators history. There were some struggles there at first as well, but no team has made the playoffs more consistently than they have since 2004. His induction, however, is tainted by the fact that he serves on the selection committee this year.
I am not shy about maintaining that Colin Campbell does not deserve entry into the HHOF, as that would be an extremely low standard to set for a man who was appointed as the Senior Vice President of Hockey Operations, and when he was at it, ruined Marty McSorley's career and Todd Bertuzzi's with excessive suspensions. He also oversaw a lot of major rule changes that have made the game far more unsafe for players, such as the trapezoid rule, the reduction of center ice, or rules that just made the game worse, like the introduction of a shootout, which makes it so that some games are just reduced to a skills competition, or a metaphorical coin toss, if you will. In the years since the lockout on 2004-05, we have also seen an increase in distrust of officials doing their job unbiased, and he contributed to that. He called Marc Savard a faker when he was high-sticked by his son Gregory, and has sent e-mails to Stephen Walkom complaining about officials who called penalties against his son, and this was while he was Vice President of Player Safety. He was also a Bettman plant in the Player Safety Department, as he has repeatedly advocated against reforming the concussion spotter program, or research related to head injuries at all, for that matter, and has refused to apologize for any of the things that he has done wrong, and he still continues to work in the NHL. If he had any respect for the game, he would stop shitting on the players that make it what it is, collect his pension, and retire away from the game, because it has no place for spineless shits like him who use their position of trust to bully players and to shame those who get injured and seek help. I will quote word for word what he said about Crosby's season-ending concussion in 2011 in response to medical experts seeking to bring their research to prevent things like this as it is written in Rick Westhead's book Finding Murph. "I don't have the patience anymore for an intelligent, well-thought-out and polite answer like yours Kinger. (In agreement with Kris King, Senior VP of hockey operations) I am tired. Tired of watching every game. Tired of second0guessing every little boo-hoo that happens on the ice and asking...Was that dirty?...Was that on purpose?...Was that an accident?...How bad is he hurt?...Oh, he got carried off on a stretcher...Oh, he is back now! Get it!!!" He was leading the Department of Player Safety, complaining about having to do his job, and he dishonored the positions that he has held in the game such as that. If he has any self-respect or honor left in him, he will resign from the HHOF, as it has no place for pariahs like him. I'd put him in the same category of disgraces to the game as Harold Ballard, or Bill Wirtz.
I will finish my thoughts on this year's inductees by highlighting not who was inducted, but by highlighting who should be inducted, and he is someone who has meant a lot to the game, and has done a lot, both on and off the ice. It is rare when someone retires from their sport, that they actually gain in popularity as they get older. That will be its own separate article, but in case you hadn't guessed his name yet, his name is Don Cherry.
10/10
Brilliant opinion