vadim sharifijanov
Registered User
- Oct 10, 2007
- 28,732
- 16,118
re: the 2003 draft, i think if it were up to me, i'm not sure how many, if any, guys would make the hall of fame other than bergeron.
but in the real world, where recent hall of famers include kevin lowe, dave andreychuk, phil housley, sergei zubov, and doug wilson, i think they'll find a way to induct a crapload of them.
fleury, staal, getzlaf, and weber are absolute locks.
fleury is 5th all time in goalie wins and it's very likely he'll retire #3, and that's even with his career being interrupted by two lockouts and a pandemic. he's also 5th all time in playoff wins, and has three cups and two finals. now it's a valid point that he only started in one and a half of his cup runs. but the hockey hall of fame cares not for valid points, they care about narrative. and fleury's narrative is three cups with pittsburgh, unceremoniously dumped in the expansion draft, where he showed the world by making the finals again.
staal, 1,000 points. objectively, there's not that much to choose from between staal or someone like jason spezza. but how many guys from the 2000 draft on are going to score 1,000 points? right now, the four guys other than staal are crosby, ovechkin, malkin, and kane. he'll likely be joined by getzlaf, kopitar, and backstrom, and likely bergeron, kessel, and stamkos, but that's still a very short list. add being the leading scorer on a cup winner and being the face of a nontraditional franchise success story and he checks all the boxes that need to be checked.
if/when he hits 1,000, getzlaf is a rich man's staal.
weber has the string of high norris placements, all-star nods, and international success. now that he's (successfully) captained the habs, he's over the top no questions asked.
that leaves suter (who will get a face of the franchise bump for minnesota and in all honesty was the best dman in this draft), burns (norris and more all-star nods than you'd think), and perry (hart trophy and all the team trophies) as strong maybes.
at the top of the unlikely pile are corey crawford and pavelski.
but even having said all this, with potentially eight hall of famers from this draft, it's weird to look back and think of a time when mike richards and dion phaneuf looked like locks early on, and a guy like zach parise looked like a strong bet, and vanek and kesler had a shot.
but in the real world, where recent hall of famers include kevin lowe, dave andreychuk, phil housley, sergei zubov, and doug wilson, i think they'll find a way to induct a crapload of them.
fleury, staal, getzlaf, and weber are absolute locks.
fleury is 5th all time in goalie wins and it's very likely he'll retire #3, and that's even with his career being interrupted by two lockouts and a pandemic. he's also 5th all time in playoff wins, and has three cups and two finals. now it's a valid point that he only started in one and a half of his cup runs. but the hockey hall of fame cares not for valid points, they care about narrative. and fleury's narrative is three cups with pittsburgh, unceremoniously dumped in the expansion draft, where he showed the world by making the finals again.
staal, 1,000 points. objectively, there's not that much to choose from between staal or someone like jason spezza. but how many guys from the 2000 draft on are going to score 1,000 points? right now, the four guys other than staal are crosby, ovechkin, malkin, and kane. he'll likely be joined by getzlaf, kopitar, and backstrom, and likely bergeron, kessel, and stamkos, but that's still a very short list. add being the leading scorer on a cup winner and being the face of a nontraditional franchise success story and he checks all the boxes that need to be checked.
if/when he hits 1,000, getzlaf is a rich man's staal.
weber has the string of high norris placements, all-star nods, and international success. now that he's (successfully) captained the habs, he's over the top no questions asked.
that leaves suter (who will get a face of the franchise bump for minnesota and in all honesty was the best dman in this draft), burns (norris and more all-star nods than you'd think), and perry (hart trophy and all the team trophies) as strong maybes.
at the top of the unlikely pile are corey crawford and pavelski.
but even having said all this, with potentially eight hall of famers from this draft, it's weird to look back and think of a time when mike richards and dion phaneuf looked like locks early on, and a guy like zach parise looked like a strong bet, and vanek and kesler had a shot.