Yay Bure (HHOFr)

[Idoit40fans]

Bure is in. Along with Sakic obviously, Sundin and Oates.

How is Shanahan not in? Stunned.

Discuss.

[mikey287]

Bure and Neely are in, Lindros should be next.
Oates was passed over for too long, about time he got in. Top-10 playmaker in history.
Sakic was a slam dunk, he's a top-40 player of all-time at least. No doubt.
Mats Sundin over Brendan Shanahan? That's a curious one. I hope that Shanny's role as disciplinarian didn't get involved here. I could take or leave Sundin being a HHOFer...he's a fringe candidate. But given that Ciccarelli's and Nieuwendyk's are in...I guess the door is open...this opens the door for someone like Daniel Alfredsson as well probably...

Now, I was very indifferent about Sundin as a player when I was younger...until I saw him play live. I was astonished. He looked like a HHOFer when you saw him play live...on paper, bleh, not that impressive of a resume. Nor does he bring a ton to the table beyond that ink...he wasn't better than Shanahan.

Bure might have been in sooner had he not failed in two major games in history (game 4 of the 1994 Finals and the 1998 gold medal game against the Czechs).

[Chefpatrick871]

Lindross in the hhof?? Really?

[Dan H]

Shanahan, Lindros, and Andreychuk all need to get in, and I'd put any of them ahead of Sundin or Oates. But both Sundin and Oates were deserving, so there's not much sense in complaining. They can only take four per year.

[mikey287]

Lindross in the hhof?? Really?

Definitely. And I'm the staunchest inductor on these boards (and most boards probably), but Lindros was absolutely dominant and changed the game in a significant fashion. Sure, I'd like to see a little more longevity, but (and I hate the two wrongs to make a point thing here) he played more games than Neely and Bure I believe...and since you wouldn't judge players that played so little on career achievements so much as you would their dominance at their peak...Lindros' peak was better than both of them, as neither was ever considered the best player in the league at any point. Bure was close, but struggled to bring a team to the playoffs in a league where 16 of 26 make the playoffs, hard to say that he's the best in the game with that...

Notwithstanding, Lindros was also better than Sundin...

[mikey287]

Shanahan, Lindros, and Andreychuk all need to get in, and I'd put any of them ahead of Sundin or Oates. But both Sundin and Oates were deserving, so there's not much sense in complaining. They can only take four per year.

Andreychuk? He will get in, but he doesn't deserve it all. This is just power-grab of stats from a compiler...never finished top-5 in points, only once in two and a half decades did he finish top-10 in points (a measley t-9th place finish in 1994, which was only because Lindros missed 20 games and Turgeon missed 15)...

He played at the weakest position in hockey history and I think he has one "third" team all-star in 1994 from it...otherwise, he was never even considered top-5 at his position, even at his peak/prime...I don't believe he's received even a single Hart Trophy vote, which is difficult to do considering James Neal has one, Yashin has a 2nd place finish, Rick Tocchett as a couple...and I could go on for days...Andreychuk was never even close to once being considered a top-10, or probably 20 player in the game at any stretch of time...he went through his entire career just losing and being a loser until his swan song with Tampa where he was a number of tiers below the top guys on that team...the next season he was promptly waived and humiliated into retirement...he played through a decade of firewagon hockey from 1982-1993 and could never once even crack a 100 point season...and it's not like he made up for it defensively, in his prime, he wasn't even a good defensive player, it wasn't until later in his career he adapated a little more defense to his game because he wasn't cutting it scoring wise anymore...

The only thing that I'll say he does have is over a guy like Ciccarelli where Ciccarelli had a similarly "bleh" career, the moment we all remember from Dino Ciccarelli is being arrested...the moment we all remember from Andreychuk's career is finally lifting the Cup. But two wrongs don't make a right, neither of them should ever get near the HHOF...Andreychuk, even with all the weak inductees recently, would still be an extremely weak entry into the Hall...

It's the Hall of Fame, not the Hall of Very Good.

[IanMoran]

Not understanding Sundin hate.

I think he was definitely better player than shanahan

[mikey287]

Not understanding Sundin hate.

I think he was definitely better player than shanahan

I'm listening...

[IanMoran]

Not understanding Sundin hate.

I think he was definitely better player than shanahan

I'm listening...

Look at the stats- more productive, did more outside of points. The guy was just a monster playing with a horrible team. Are we supposed to put Shanahan in over him just because Shanahan played on some amazing teams?

[Dan H]

I agree Andreychuk's peak was lower than Lindros's or Bure's. But I suspect my HHOF standard is a bit lower than yours, which is just a matter of preference, and I'd also claim that most of what you said about Andreychuk is also true of Sundin and Oates. I won't look up all the Hart votes from past years, but I'd be surprised if either of them were ever a close second or third. In my mind, Lindros and Bure were high ceiling guys with relatively brief careers, and Sundin, Oates, and Andreychuk were all-star players for a long time. All 5 make my HHOF cut.

Besides, Andreychuk has that hardworking, good guy, if-you-don't-like-him-you-don't-like-hockey thing about him, kind of the same way Crosby or Parise do now. No, I'm not implying he's as good as Crosby... just that he possesses an intangible quality that's every bit as relevant to the HHOF as was the electrifying quality of Bure's skating.

The bottom line, though, is probably that our HHOF bars are in different places. The actual HHOF voters clearly have set their bar a bit lower than for baseball and most other sports, and that's fine with me.

[IanMoran]

Andreychuk getting in would be really bad...

[mikey287]

I agree Andreychuk's peak was lower than Lindros's or Bure's. But I suspect my HHOF standard is a bit lower than yours, which is just a matter of preference, and I'd also claim that most of what you said about Andreychuk is also true of Sundin and Oates. I won't look up all the Hart votes from past years, but I'd be surprised if either of them were ever a close second or third. In my mind, Lindros and Bure were high ceiling guys with relatively brief careers, and Sundin, Oates, and Andreychuk were all-star players for a long time. All 5 make my HHOF cut.

Besides, Andreychuk has that hardworking, good guy, if-you-don't-like-him-you-don't-like-hockey thing about him, kind of the same way Crosby or Parise do now. No, I'm not implying he's as good as Crosby... just that he possesses an intangible quality that's every bit as relevant to the HHOF as was the electrifying quality of Bure's skating.

The bottom line, though, is probably that our HHOF bars are in different places. The actual HHOF voters clearly have set their bar a bit lower than for baseball and most other sports, and that's fine with me.

For your reference, not really to make a point:

Oates:
Hart: 4th, 11th (and a couple other scant votes now and again that I throw out)
Selke: 4th
Second-team AS, "Fourth" team AS (x2) - at center, not easy as he went head to head with so many great centers: 99, 66, Sakic, Yzerman, etc.

Goals finishes (top 5): N/A
Assists finishes (top 5): 1, 1, 1, 2, 2, 3, 3, 4, 4, 5 (10 times top-5; 6th all-time)
Points finishes (top 10): 3, 3, 3, 7, 10, 10, 10

Sundin:
Hart: 8th
Second-team AS (x2)

Goals finishes (top 5): 2
Assists finishes (top 5): N/A
Points finishes (top 10): 4, 7

I wouldn't expect Sundin to be up that highly either because he wasn't that great, relative to the conversation.

Dave Andreychuk:
Hart: N/A
Selke: 10th (odd anomaly, as it's the only time in his career he receives even scant recognition...rarely does that happen)
"Third" team AS (x2), "Fourth" team AS at LW (much weaker position, of course)

Goals finishes (top 5): 4
Assists finishes (top 5): N/A
Points finishes (top 10): t-9
---

Re: Andreychuk. Was he really that hard of a worker in the 80's...? Seemed more like a guy that could just kind of collect goals, didn't seem to be a driving force behind much of anything. Later in his career his work rate increased because it wasn't as easy to score so he needed to add a dimension to his game to stay relevant. He doesn't do it for me, and it's by a significant margin.

[mikey287]

Not understanding Sundin hate.

I think he was definitely better player than shanahan

I'm listening...

Look at the stats- more productive, did more outside of points. The guy was just a monster playing with a horrible team. Are we supposed to put Shanahan in over him just because Shanahan played on some amazing teams?

Brendan Shanahan:
Hart: 9

First team AS (x2), Second team AS, "Third" team AS (x2), "Fourth" team AS (x3) - that's a good number of times to be considered one of the best at your position.

Goals (top 5): 5 (five times, top 10)
Assists: N/A
Points (top 10): 8, 10

Won 3 Stanley Cups and his acquistion after the Wings were swept in 1995 is largely believed to be the key cog that turned the Red Wings from a perennial loser into a dynasty or near-dynasty (!). Power forward winger, instrumental in Detroit's offensive and defensive exploits as well as physically imposing. Far better defensively than Sundin who really only did average work as far as centers are concerned. Shanahan was better defensively and from a position that is at a disadvantage to be so. For the minor difference in production, Shanahan brought much more to his team than Sundin ever could.

Shanahan's 10 best adjusted points totals:

92 92 86 85 82 79 76 75 75 71

Sundin's best 10:

97 95 92 91 87 85 84 81 81 80

I think it's fair to say that the fractional difference in production is off-set by what Shanny brought to the table besides scoring, Sundin can't make that claim. We're putting Shanahan over him because he was better. Shanahan played on more defensive-minded teams for much of his career, while Sundin was permitted to "go for it" on Pat Quinn coached teams...I won't deny that Shanny played on better teams, but those "better teams" weren't better until he got there. Meanwhile, the Nordiques who became a "better team" felt that Sundin was not part of the betterment process and dispatched him just before winning the Stanley Cup. But ignoring that, just on head-to-head resumes without looking deeper into it, Shanahan has him beat...then blows by him when you hear the story behind each of their careers...

[Gaucho]

Imagine how good Oates could have been if he had tried steroids.

[Gabe]

Not really understanding why some think Ciccarelli shouldn't be enshrined. 17th all time with 608 goals is nothing to sneeze at. I'd think that 1200 pts qualifies for the hall.

[mikey287]

Not really understanding why some think Ciccarelli shouldn't be enshrined. 17th all time with 608 goals is nothing to sneeze at. I'd think that 1200 pts qualifies for the hall.

Which is right on the money of what's wrong with the Hall. What if the NHL removed the offside rule...scoring would easily double. Nail Yakupov plays 10 years in the offside-less hockey era and records 1600 points. You're telling me his 1600 points are worth as many as Jagr's, who scored the vast majority of his in the clutch and grab era? That's a plump stack of bologna.

Scoring X = HHOF, is maybe the worst argument in sports history. It sucks, it's crap, it sucks craps...

[Pavel Bure]

I'd like to thank the KGB for their persuasion of the voters. Those guys are so good at talking they could sell snow to someone in Siberia. I'd also like to thank the NHL for making the rinks 1/2 as big when I played, having the rink only be 1/2 the size really allowed me to show off my game. Heck they even allowed my team to play without defensemen or a goalie. It was really a boon to me scoring goals. What a life. Thanks again, I deserve this.

[steelhammer]

It's about time Bure got in. We had a debate on here before about whether he belonged in or not. He most certainly does. He was just one of those players you were legitimately afraid to play against due to his speed and goal scoring prowess.

Along those same line, Lindros was an animal up until his injury. He greatly influenced, for better or worse, the way GMs would judge draft prospects for there on out. I absolutely despised him, but he was really really good.

[mikey287]

Yeah, I was a tiny bit on the fence about Bure. And I'm quite sure I'd make a damn good argument against him (and probably have) but I'm not against him getting in...not that this counts in my world, but he looks better than the recent inductees plus guys like Duff and Boivin...maybe Bure shakes some of the voters into remembering one of the bigger snubs (the biggest?) out there right now...Sergei Makarov. 8-time First-Team All-Star in the SuperLeague (all consecutive), 9-time scoring leader in the league, came over to North America in his twilight and was a major scorer early, so you can be quite sure that his game would have translated just fine...not to mention the international resume, let's put it this way, if gold medals were rings, Makarov would have run out of fingers...

[Streaks House]

Bure was fun to watch. It's a shame the knee injury robbed him of more years.

[Dan H]

Thanks for the stats, Mikey. I made a cursory Google search, but didn't quickly see that kind of data and decided the point wasn't worth the research time required.

You're right Re: Makarov. Everyone forgets him because we didn't see him play much. I forgot about him today, too, although I'd previously been convinced that his candidacy has been neglected. Put him ahead of Andreychuk (and Oates/etc) on my list.

Re: era-adjusted scoring, here's an argument in favor of the fringe HHOF guys. Even in the high-scoring 80s and early 90s 600+ goals was a significant accomplishment. Scoring one goal in the NHL is a feat beyond probably anybody posting on this board. Scoring 100 is a feat beyond the vast majority of players ever to see the NHL. I'm sure Ciccarelli and Andreychuk got a few lucky goals on weird caroms, wide-open empty nets, etc., but even in the 1980s, goals generally weren't easy. Players still had to get a shot off and beat a professional goalie. The average goals per game in the 80s was a bit below 8, and was about 5.5 in the mid-1990s (aside: Wayne Gretzky's scoring alone might account for about 0.1 gpg of that difference). So, it was maybe 45% easier to score a goal in the 80s than in the clutch-and-grab era. I'm not going to spend a lot of time on the analysis here to normalize players' goals against the league averages each season and produce some sort of era-adjusted integrated total for everybody, but if I did, I'm guessing both Andreychuk and Ciccarelli would each have more than 400 "2012 goals." It's hard for me to downplay that accomplishment and call it merely "compiling." I'm confident that the same sort of analysis would show Jaromir Jagr was a far better offensive player than either of those two, but if Jagr were the HHOF bar, you'd have to throw out most of the players currently enshrined. Those 600+ goal scorers were really good players.

[mikey287]

Thanks for the stats, Mikey. I made a cursory Google search, but didn't quickly see that kind of data and decided the point wasn't worth the research time required.

You're right Re: Makarov. Everyone forgets him because we didn't see him play much. I forgot about him today, too, although I'd previously been convinced that his candidacy has been neglected. Put him ahead of Andreychuk (and Oates/etc) on my list.

Re: era-adjusted scoring, here's an argument in favor of the fringe HHOF guys. Even in the high-scoring 80s and early 90s 600+ goals was a significant accomplishment. Scoring one goal in the NHL is a feat beyond probably anybody posting on this board. Scoring 100 is a feat beyond the vast majority of players ever to see the NHL. I'm sure Ciccarelli and Andreychuk got a few lucky goals on weird caroms, wide-open empty nets, etc., but even in the 1980s, goals generally weren't easy. Players still had to get a shot off and beat a professional goalie. The average goals per game in the 80s was a bit below 8, and was about 5.5 in the mid-1990s (aside: Wayne Gretzky's scoring alone might account for about 0.1 gpg of that difference). So, it was maybe 45% easier to score a goal in the 80s than in the clutch-and-grab era. I'm not going to spend a lot of time on the analysis here to normalize players' goals against the league averages each season and produce some sort of era-adjusted integrated total for everybody, but if I did, I'm guessing both Andreychuk and Ciccarelli would each have more than 400 "2012 goals." It's hard for me to downplay that accomplishment and call it merely "compiling." I'm confident that the same sort of analysis would show Jaromir Jagr was a far better offensive player than either of those two, but if Jagr were the HHOF bar, you'd have to throw out most of the players currently enshrined. Those 600+ goal scorers were really good players.

I don't disagree with anything really, until your conclusion. I'm not even a big believer in adjusted stats - they can be dealt with in context, but they're just more stats no matter which way you slice it. But let's go with your numbers. So now you got a guy with Andreychuk's very unimpressive career resume, with very unimpressive "non-ink", so to speak, and now the aura of a 500 or 600-goal scorer is also gone...what does he have now? I'd say a $15 charge on his credit card for a ticket to the HHOF just like you and me. Right? I mean, the only draw to Andreychuk is the total numbers...his peak ranks below that of James Neal's right now and beats it to a pulp if Neal does anything close to what he did this year. His prime is nearly indiscernible from most good or better players in the era. And his career is a tale of two pretty uninteresting players. The sole reason anyone remembers him is because of just totals. That's wrong, in my opinion.

I don't mean to play down what these guys did in general. I sure as hell ain't scoring 600 NHL goals in this life...hell, the way I play the game, I won't score 600 goals in my house league career! I "play them down" in comparison to their HHOF peers - or aspiring HHOF peers, as it were. Frankly, Andreychuk doesn't get a second look from me...I'd throw him right in the garbage. Straight shot. Right on top of Phil Housley, Vincent Damphousse and Pat Verbeek...no second thoughts there.

Andreychuk and Ciccarelli and, the biggest culprit of'em, Mike Gartner were the biggest compilers of all. Seldom ever impact players, career losers that played on teams where they could just free-wheel around the rink and try to collect goals. The teams lacked identity, focus, a game plan it seemed. That 80's Minnesota team could have been something decent but for various reasons their youth didn't pan out or was dealt for nothing...They were largely one-dimensional players too, I'll give Ciccarelli a little bit extra on that front, but he's nothing special. In fact, I'd almost rather have Verbeek if I was starting a team and it came down between him and Dino...but that's another story...

Someone like Messier, started out as an impact player - to whatever degree - and then the last 7 years of his career was the exact definition of compiling. Any time anyone asks, "what does it mean to compile" I just go to Mark Messier 1997-2004. Hung on way past his prime, ruined the Canucks (a team could have done something, but the "greatest captain of all-time" ripped the team in half and ran off) and then made sure that he got first line and power play time in New York while holding down young kids in the lineup and perpetuating the idea that the Rangers could compete in this league with that lineup. In trying to balance out satisfying Mess and keep getting younger (while getting older at July 1 it seemed) they shipped off fan favorites that didn't run away when the going got tough like Adam Graves and Brian Leetch for rancid magic beans...while their shiny-headed captain got two secondary power play assists in another 6-3 Ranger loss...that's a compiler. I don't even have Messier as a top 25 player of all-time. Again, another story...

But that's what I mean, Andreychuk and these guys just happened to be born at this time and played in the league at this time and it's a unique time in history where if you played that whole decade, you really got access to offensive totals that other players weren't entitled to just simply by birth year. Frank Nighbor has 139 goals and 237 career points and he takes a huge dump on the career of everyone in this post not named Messier. Nighbor is only discussed by historians because he never got the chance to put in 500 goals because of the year he was born, not because of his skill level. If the 1910's and 20's were the opposite, and not an average of <4 goals per game, but twice that, and Nighbor had 1000 points and Denneny had 500 goals and Joe Malone scored 700...at least they'd be known...even if it's for the wrong reasons...

But the idea is, if someone like Andreychuk existed, with Andreychuk's relative skill level and was born in 1900...he might not have even made the league or he would have been a career 50, 60, 80 point scorer...it's just on birth year, not skill or impact, that a relative-scrub like Andreychuk could lay claim to 600 National Hockey League goals...I'm sorry, I'm not penalizing Howie Morenz for being born in 1902 on account that Dave Andreychuk only shot on, what, 2 HHOF goalies in his prime in 80 games? Not happening...

Sorry, went off on a tangent, but it's disappointing to hear a player like Dino Ciccarelli get applause while a player like Newsy Lalonde is a complete unknown in even a historical context...

[JoseCuervo]

Oates was passed over for too long, about time he got in. Top-10 playmaker in history.

Pfft, francis was better

[Pitt87]

Bure is in. Along with Sakic obviously, Sundin and Oates.

How is Shanahan not in? Stunned.

Discuss.

Good player, but his vision is terrible...

[Idoit40fans]

Bure is in. Along with Sakic obviously, Sundin and Oates.

How is Shanahan not in? Stunned.

Discuss.

Good player, but his vision is terrible...

I really hope that had nothing to do with him getting passed up this round.