Future Hockey HOFers?
 

Not sure which category this fits in, but I recently bought a large group of hockey signed photos. Before I shuffle them off to ebay, I'm pulling the ones that may be HOFers, but I know little about hockey history. So I was wondering if any hockey fans out there would mind telling me which of the following WILL make the HOF, definitely WON'T make it, or fall into the endless Mattingly/Hodges/Santo grey area? (Do hockey fans argue this stuff as much as we baseball fans??)

Mark Recchi
Paul Kariya
Owen Nolan
Patrick Markeau
Peter Bondra
Teppe Numminen
Felix Potvin
Theo Fluery
Sergei Zubov
Sandis Ozolnish
Wendel Clark
Milan Hejduk
Pierre Turgeon
Jeremy Roenick
Alexei Yashin

Thanks!!

Roenick should get in, maybe Recchi & Marleau. Those are the only potential hall of famers you have listed.

To answer your question, not many people argue stats like baseball. I would agree with the above, but I think Pierre Turgeon as a 500 goal scorer and possibly Theo Fleury are good for it. Problem is hockey probably isn't worth saving for potential future value.

Thanks, guys. Yeah, I'm not keeping these for any huge value, just putting the HOFers in a binder since I have them.

I would say Recchi, Turgeon and Roenick possibly Fleury.

Tom C

Hockey is a bit looser with the HOF than most sports. I think Roenick, Recchi, and Kariya are pretty solid. Fleury, Nolan and Marleau (esp if the latter scores 500 goals which looks likely) possible, and Clark, Turgeon and Zubov dark horse candidates.

bondra, kariya, recchi, and roenick are locks.

I forgot to add Bondra as he snuck over the 500 goal mark too. Not sure about Kariya though. He stayed around long enough

Kariya was a highly skilled dominant player who scored 400 goals but I think the fact he won a World Junior Championship, Olympic Gold, and two World Championships along with a Stanley Cup final appearance might get him in. Too bad he had concussion issues or he surely would have scored 500 goals.

What might keep him out is that he wasn't warm and fuzzy as a person, especially the media.

I remember when Kariya was in the Junior World Championships I heard a story about him in his Freshman year of college. His first shift in a practice the team captain (who was an upper classman) was on his line and during the play started banging his stick on the ice to let Kariya know he thought he was open for a pass from Kariya. The pass never came. During a break in the action Kariya came over to the captain and told him "Dude, you don't have to do that. I know exactly where you are all the time. And you weren't open". At that point the captain figured this kid might be pretty good.

Tom C

Hockey HOF
 

While not too much value there, some good players for sure. Kariya, Roenick, Bondra, and Recchi are possibilities for sure.

Turgeon should be one too. Over 500 goals, over 1300 points (averaged over a point per game in his career) and almost a point per game in playoffs. 4 time All-Star, but no major awards (IDK - maybe he did receive a leg lamp at one point.) He played in an era where superstar centers ruled the league: Gretzky, Lemieux, Yzerman, Lindros, Sundin, Messier, Fedorov, Oates, Kariya, Lafontaine, Gilmour - to name a few.

Where are all you hockey aficionados on a normal basis. We have to have some more off baseball show and tell here. Football, Hockey, Basketball, Golf, etc. I can't be the only guy who collects everything.

i was a big hockey fan in the early 90's...when you're talking about these guys up for the hof now those were my "prime" years. it's almost unbelievable to think guys like bure in the hof already and you have jagr who came into the league BEFORE some of these guys and he's still going strong. god bless the man.

edit: pierre turgeon is another good candidate, he did play in a stacked era. if you do the baseball adjusted-era number like they do in baseball his number probably falls short as his peak years wasn't that impressive (only one 100pt season). but this isn't baseball where's the criteria is more laxed i'd definitely put him in...just a quiet guy who went about his business on the nice.

I collect everything as well :(

I tried watching some hockey in the late 80's/early 90's, but without a team in Cleveland it was tough and I bailed. But I remember watching Jagr and Mario rule. So a couple weeks ago I take a work trip to Columbus, and my buddy talked me into going to a BlueJackets game. Lo and behold, Jagr comes out! I couldn't believe he was still playing.

80's and 90's Hockey
 

...this talk about 80's and 90's hockey had me thinking a bit more about where some of these players rank. Going back to the dominant centers of that era - everyone knows that the likes of Gretzky, Lemieux and Yzerman are in a separate class. However, looking at Turgeon's stats compared to another center of that era, Mats Sundin, who was a first ballot fall-of-famer - it seems that Turgeon is just as deserving, maybe even more.

Mats Sundin:

Games Played: 1,346
Goals: 564
Assists: 785
Points: 1,349
Points Per Game: 1.002
100+ Point Seasons: (1) 1992-93

Playoffs:

Games Played: 91
Goals: 38
Assists: 44
Points: 82
Points Per Game: .090

Awards: (1) Mark Messier Leadership Award (2007-08)
Stanley Cups: (0)


Pierre Turgeon:

Games Played: 1,294
Goals: 515
Assists: 812
Points: 1,327
Points Per Game: 1.025
100+ Point Seasons: (2) 1989-90 and 1992-93

Playoffs:

Games Played: 109
Goals: 35
Assists: 62
Points: 97
Points Per Game: 0.89

Awards: (1) Lady Byng Memorial Trophy (1992-93)
Stanley Cups: (0)

...can't get much closer than that. I know there's other things to look at besides the stats listed above - but how one is a first-ballot hall of famer, and the other may never be considered is quite perplexing. The knock on Turgeon was his refusal to participate in a major brawl while playing for Canada, before he even played in the NHL. With the way the NHL is trying to make fighting less of a factor - something like that may very well be looked at in a different light nowadays. The Positive Coaching Alliance would be all over that. Haha

...sorry for getting sidetracked. That lot of signatures is solid, now that I think about the skill of those players. Neat collection!

Is 500 goals pretty much a HOF lock, like 300 wins/3000 hits? So if a guy ends with 489 goals, he's stuck in Tommy John/Jim Kaat purgatory?

By the way, cool breakdown on Turgeon. Thanks to all for the discussions.

Ken

Also, for this particular group, it was 52 photos from just before 2000, and I'm really glad I bought them. It had a few minor HOFers, the handful of near-HOFers discussed here, and no real bums. It's been fun looking these guys up, which is the point for me.

On the flip side, 52 signatures, and not one is legible!! I had to go look at my Jacques Laperriere photo, where you can read every single letter, for some sanity!

do you have a photo of the kariya? he was never media-friendly and didn't sign alot. i suspect alot of his stuff is forged as psa and jsa are pretty clueless about hockey sigs.

Here you go. They are from Grad, Ink, which sold to Mastro in 2000. I'm not sure if they are affiliated with Steve Grad.

Here is one of the Kariya's I got in person around 97.

http://i1218.photobucket.com/albums/...KariyaPaul.jpg

Don't forget that Paul Kariya was the most dominant player on the greatest college Ice Hockey team of all time. His Maine Black Bears of 1992 (I think) went 42-1-2 for the year and won the National Championship!

I grew up in Orono, Maine and as a Hockey player, one of my greatest thrills in life was playing at this outdoor rink and at like 9:30 in the evening with some buddies when this pickup truck shows up and a bunch of college guys got out to shoot around for a minute. They looked like normal guys but they were all hockey players at U. Maine. Paul Kariya was in the group (as well as another Hobey Baker winner Chris Imes) and they shot around with the handful of guys that were there for about 30 minutes before leaving to head home. As a teenage hockey fan in Maine, that was about as good as it got!

Love me some Paul Kariya!

in term of pure skill, i'd take kariya over anybody during his playing day with his speed/vision/hand/playmaking ability. guys like him, lindros, and forsberg just played in the wrong era where the physicality, clutching, grabbing, trapping style just led to too many injuries and bodies wearing down. too bad.

not sure why but i just can't get into today's hockey like the 90's...damn u bettman!