Hall of Shame: Alex Mogilny Should be in HOF

[vadim sharifijanov]

But, I could list off a number of comparable players to Molginy.

i love mogilny but

Joe Mullen. Mullen was a ppg for 1000 plus games. He played a big chuink of those in the run and gun 80s. He's in.

led the playoffs in goals twice

Bernie Federko. Played most of his career in the 80s. 1100 points in 1000 plus games, and didn't break 400 goals. He's in.

led the playoffs in scoring

Glenn Anderson was a sub ppg player and he's in. He benefited from one of the best rosters of all time.

Guys like Gartner and

outscored mark messier, 1985-1987 playoffs

Ciccarelli are because they managed to play 20 years and were extremely consistent. If Alex had been able to play that long he surpasses both of them for total points.

13th all time in playoff goals

Gartner doesn't have a cup ring (which seems to help bubble guys get in and weights too heavily imo).

bingo

 

[beowulf]

Ya I don't get why he is not in the hall. Dude was a great player and terrific goal scorer.

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

i love mogilny but


led the playoffs in goals twice



led the playoffs in scoring



outscored mark messier, 1985-1987 playoffs



13th all time in playoff goals



bingo

.
good post.

In Gartner's favor, 700 goals

also, he was a pretty good two-way player and international performer.

but seriously, he got in because "700 goals!"

Of course, I wouldnt be shocked if Mogilny gets in because "76 goals!" even if I don't think he's deserving

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

His 92/93 season was noticeably sexier than Sundin's and while he was tied with Selanne for goals, he played 7 fewer games. I know, crazy year... But Almo was on pace for over 80 goals (82 actually) and almost 140 points. Suddenly much less indistinguishable from the other monster years of the era. Or just better.

He was on pace for 100 points the year before and even the year after. As lukewarm and hit-or-miss as he would eventually become, if he had been just a little bit healthier during his prime, his career would probably look very HHoF worthy to (many more people than just) me.

So it's not as much a matter of "having a fluke monster year among a dozen of fluke monster years" but rather "being injured too much in his prime" to me.

i've been thinking about this and i think maybe we need to rethink mogilny's 1993 season. i alluded to this upthread, when i said the exceptional circumstance of that season for mogilny wasn't lafontaine, but that PP unit, which had historically good players at every position except bodger, who was really more of a second distributor from the point than the cannon that unit lacked.

but i wonder even if granting that we are implicitly giving too much credit to lafontaine here. yes, 148 points is a remarkable thing, in any season. yes, mogilny's 138/9 point pace is lower, though if i asked most of you who finished 4th in points/game in the '93 season i bet almost none of you would guess mogilny. but given that mogilny was the shooter and lafontaine was the passer, is that ten point differential, especially given the inflated scoring of that season, basically just what you would normally expect the difference between a playmaking center and a goal/game scorer? for instance, 1993 lafontaine: 1.76, 1993 mogilny, 1.65; 1991 oates: 1.89, 1991 hull: 1.68.

at ES, lafontaine was tied with selanne for third in the league, with 83 points. mogilny was tied with oates for fifth, with 78. that, of course, puts mogilny on pace for 85 ES points over the full 84 game season that lafontaine (and selanne) played.

but on the PP, lafontaine was 5th with 43 PP assists, and hawerchuk was tied with gilmour for 3rd with 44. those were the two guys with the most touches. mogilny was third in PP goals, with 27. andreychuk was first, with 32. it stands to reason that because there are two assists for every goal, and because lafontaine was in a distributing role, that he might be expected to have 11 more PP points than mogilny's per game pace (and 8/9 more points overall) due to that season's historically high PP opportunities, right? and one could also argue that mogilny only got the 4th most touches on that PP, because hawerchuk (same amount of PP points as mogilny's pace) and lafontaine controlled the puck and andreychuk (two more PP points than mogilny's pace) cleaned up the garbage, but that doesn't necessarily make him worse than those other guys, or less capable, just that his skillset was best suited to fit the wrist shot from the soft areas role.

 

[Price is Wright]

Speaking of Ziggy Palffy, I'd consider inducting him over Mogilny, but he wasn't lucky enough to have a spike year in the fluke 1992-93 season.

You're hurting my heart.

Palffy I feel had elite HOF skill but just didn't play for the right teams. Quebec drafts him instead of Rene Corbet and he plays on the mid to late 90s Avalanche and he's in the HOF as one of the best wingers of the 90s. 96-97 Palffy led Isles with 90pts, 2nd was Travis Green at 67pts. Crazier was 02-03 where he had 85pts and next best was Mathieu Schneider at only 43pts. Only two seasons where he wasn't PPG during the deadpuck era (17 in 33 in rookie year lockout 95, 59 in 63 in 01-02), but... no, he won't ever be in the Hall.

I know the "if he was on a better team" thing can apply to a lot of European wingers like him and Bondra and Bure but Palffy was on my Islanders and was the only hope I had left in the club in the 90s. And unfortunately all people remember now was when he kissed a teammate after a goal. Not how dominant and productive he was, just a silly YouTube/TSN clip. Sorry, carry on with Mogilny.

 

[bobbyking]

Finishing lower then kovalev in hart voting pretty much denies any chance of a hof berth lmao

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

i wanted to do some accounting for the '92 season, to see for myself how that buffalo unit came together. hopefully this is of interest to others too. imo, the second half of that season is not spoken about enough but is a huge huge feather in the cap of both lafontaine's and mogilny's careers, partially because both guys had short or sporadic peaks and "need" those half-seasons.

so basically how that season goes is the lafontaine/turgeon trade happens early on in the season. lafontaine joining the team wakes up mogilny (who had three points in nine games). he and lafontaine score at a little over a point/game pace for the next bit, with mogilny missing a few games in that stretch, before lafontaine gets hurt for a month. andreychuk seems not to be their linemate yet (he also had three points in the nine games before the trade, but only had three more in the nine that lafontaine played before he got hurt). through all of this, before and after the trade, hawerchuk is chugging along at a point/game pace.

when lafontaine comes back, the andreychuk/lafontaine/mogilny line gets put together and it's magic. the PP clicks too. here is league scoring from the day lafontaine comes back into the lineup and the end of the season:

you can also see that mogilny benefits the least from the PP:

(^ mogilny has 22 PP points in 37 games, tied for 17th; he's on pace for 28, which still only has him at 10th.)

interestingly, like bertuzzi, mogilny stupidly got himself suspended just as he was entering his peak. (he slapped a linseman).



lafontaine's first game back up to mogilny's suspension:

(^ hawerchuk is tied for 22nd with 14 points, but has 9 PP points, which puts him right up there with lafontaine and andreychuk, and way ahead of mogilny)

during mogilny's suspension, lafontaine and co (but especially lafontaine) went hog wild for seven games, then went into a three game slump before mogilny came back and they tore it up again.

here are those first seven games that mogilny was out:

here's the sabres PP unit, from mogilny's first game back from suspension to the end of the season. they averaged exactly one PP goal/game.

overall points from mogilny's first game back to the end of the year:

 

[Troubadour]

Wow, something to dig into. Great job.

 

[Troubadour]

After a fast look at the tables Vadim posted, I've noticed almost all of the players who were in the top echelon then are in the Hall now.

Except for:

Turgeon
Roenick
K. Stevens
Tocchet
Janney
Nolan

(and Almo)

How would you rate his chances compared with theirs?

 

[RandV]

There's a lot of peaks and valley's in his career, I wonder if that would be considered a factor in how he's viewed for the HOF or how we view him. Like he followed up that 76 goal season with a 33 goal season. Or while injuries were a factor, in Vancouver he had a 55 goal season (79GP) and a 14 goal season (59). That kind of puts him in more of an Kovalev category than a Bure or Selanne.

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

After a fast look at the tables Vadim posted, I've noticed almost all of the players who were in the top echelon then are in the Hall now.

Except for:

Turgeon
Roenick
K. Stevens
Tocchet
Janney
Nolan

(and Almo)

How would you rate his chances compared with theirs?

I think Turgeon and Roenick have better chances than Mogilny. Nolan and Stevens have very small chances (worse than Mogilny). Tocchet and Janney have zero chance.

 

[reckoning]

A few posts have brought up his Cup win with New Jersey. Where would one rank Mogilny's importance to that Cup team in comparison to his teammates?

It would be a stretch to put him ahead of Brodeur, Stevens, Niedermayer, Elias or Holik. What about Arnott, Rafalski, Sykora, Gomez or Lemieux?

At best, Mogilny would rank in the 6th-10th place range; which would be Bob Bourne/Kevin Lowe territory. It's great that he was a contributor to a Cup win, but it isn't significant enough to put him in the Hall for me.

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

A few posts have brought up his Cup win with New Jersey. Where would one rank Mogilny's importance to that Cup team in comparison to his teammates?

It would be a stretch to put him ahead of Brodeur, Stevens, Niedermayer, Elias or Holik. What about Arnott, Rafalski, Sykora, Gomez or Lemieux?

At best, Mogilny would rank in the 6th-10th place range; which would be Bob Bourne/Kevin Lowe territory. It's great that he was a contributor to a Cup win, but it isn't significant enough to put him in the Hall for me.

Mogilny was tied for 10th in scoring on the team, 1 point behind his linemate Sergei Brylin: 1999-00 New Jersey Devils Roster and Statistics | Hockey-Reference.com

Granted, teams were focused more on covering Mogilny than Brylin. But every player you mentioned, with the possible exception of Gomez was more important to the team in the playoffs that year. IMO, Ken Daneyko was more important. John Madden may have been, as well.

Definitely more important than Mogilny in 2000 (listed in rough order)

1. Stevens
2. Elias
3. Arnott
4. Brodeur
5. Sykora
6. Holik
7. Niedermayer
8. Rafalski
9. Lemieux
10. Daneyko

Next would be Mogilny, Gomez, and Madden. Maybe Brylin.
__________________________

Mogilny was great in the 2000-01 regular season and good in the 2001 playoffs (much better than 2000) before completely choking in the finals that year. 2000-01 New Jersey Devils Roster and Statistics | Hockey-Reference.com

 

[Sadekuuro]

Great post vadim, and this

(he slapped a linseman).

is a really excellent hockey typo as well.

 

[frisco]

There's a lot of peaks and valley's in his career, I wonder if that would be considered a factor in how he's viewed for the HOF or how we view him. Like he followed up that 76 goal season with a 33 goal season. Or while injuries were a factor, in Vancouver he had a 55 goal season (79GP) and a 14 goal season (59). That kind of puts him in more of an Kovalev category than a Bure or Selanne.

It don't know if holding up Pavel Bure as the standard of consistency really makes any sense. As with Mogilny, Bure was all over the map in his career probably even more so than Mogilny. Sixty goals one year, 12 the next, etc., big time injury troubles.

My Best-Carey

 

[Newsworthy]

Well... it does give him a better case than Phil Housley...

How so?

 

[Newsworthy]

More points than Lindros, Bure and Kariya.
More points per game than Kariya, approximately the same as Bure and Lindros.
Only one of the four to get over 1000 points.

Best of all (and this should put him in the HHOF): He alone amongst the 4 won a stanley cup.

He should be an obvious selection.

(I like Kariya too for the HHOF)

I don't get the correlation between Lindros, Kariya, Bure and Mogilny?
No one thinks Alex is better than those guys

 

[frisco]

I don't get the correlation between Lindros, Kariya, Bure and Mogilny?
No one thinks Alex is better than those guys

I don't know what Kariya has on Mogilny. Less points, less points/game, less playoff points, no SC. Other than some AS teams because he was against weak competition (LW) Mogilny probably has the better HOF c.v.

Also, I think Mogilny deserves more credit as a trailblazer being the first defector from the USSR. That has nothing to do with Kariya but a point nonetheless.

My Best-Carey

 

[Newsworthy]

You're hurting my heart.

Palffy I feel had elite HOF skill but just didn't play for the right teams. Quebec drafts him instead of Rene Corbet and he plays on the mid to late 90s Avalanche and he's in the HOF as one of the best wingers of the 90s. 96-97 Palffy led Isles with 90pts, 2nd was Travis Green at 67pts. Crazier was 02-03 where he had 85pts and next best was Mathieu Schneider at only 43pts. Only two seasons where he wasn't PPG during the deadpuck era (17 in 33 in rookie year lockout 95, 59 in 63 in 01-02), but... no, he won't ever be in the Hall.

I know the "if he was on a better team" thing can apply to a lot of European wingers like him and Bondra and Bure but Palffy was on my Islanders and was the only hope I had left in the club in the 90s. And unfortunately all people remember now was when he kissed a teammate after a goal. Not how dominant and productive he was, just a silly YouTube/TSN clip. Sorry, carry on with Mogilny.

Palffy didn't have the team or talent but he also had problems being helathy

 

[Newsworthy]

I don't know what Kariya has on Mogilny. Less points, less points/game, less playoff points, no SC. Other than some AS teams because he was against weak competition (LW) Mogilny probably has the better HOF c.v.

Also, I think Mogilny deserves more credit as a trailblazer being the first defector from the USSR. That has nothing to do with Kariya but a point nonetheless.

My Best-Carey

Kariya for me is a tricky one. Injuries really stopped him from being special for a long time ala Mike Bossy.
Kariya is still the better player.
He is borderline HOF to me at best.
You make the case for Mogilny but not Turgeon yet Turgeon has the better numbers than Alex.
I love Pierre but also feel he is borderline and better than Alex. And what about LeClair?
PALFFY shouldn't get in either.
IMO Mogilny has Hall of Fame talent but was not consistent enough.
and He was a JAG on NJ

 

[New Jersey Devils]

A few posts have brought up his Cup win with New Jersey. Where would one rank Mogilny's importance to that Cup team in comparison to his teammates?

It would be a stretch to put him ahead of Brodeur, Stevens, Niedermayer, Elias or Holik. What about Arnott, Rafalski, Sykora, Gomez or Lemieux?

At best, Mogilny would rank in the 6th-10th place range; which would be Bob Bourne/Kevin Lowe territory. It's great that he was a contributor to a Cup win, but it isn't significant enough to put him in the Hall for me.

Mogilny was tied for 10th in scoring on the team, 1 point behind his linemate Sergei Brylin: 1999-00 New Jersey Devils Roster and Statistics | Hockey-Reference.com

Granted, teams were focused more on covering Mogilny than Brylin. But every player you mentioned, with the possible exception of Gomez was more important to the team in the playoffs that year. IMO, Ken Daneyko was more important. John Madden may have been, as well.

Definitely more important than Mogilny in 2000 (listed in rough order)

1. Stevens
2. Elias
3. Arnott
4. Brodeur
5. Sykora
6. Holik
7. Niedermayer
8. Rafalski
9. Lemieux
10. Daneyko

Next would be Mogilny, Gomez, and Madden. Maybe Brylin.
__________________________

Mogilny was great in the 2000-01 regular season and good in the 2001 playoffs (much better than 2000) before completely choking in the finals that year. 2000-01 New Jersey Devils Roster and Statistics | Hockey-Reference.com

Damn, we are really crapping on the influence Mogilny had on these two playoffs huh? Mogilny was acquired by Lou at the deadline to add another scoring threat to his 2/3rd line to take the pressure off of the A-line (Arnott, Elias, Sykora). And it did exactly that. While he didn't exactly light it up in 2000, teams were forced to balance their checking line between 2 lines.

In the last minutes of game 7 vs Philly in the Conference Finals, who did Robinson replace Sykora with on the top line and led to the subsequent GW by Elias? In game 6 of Stanley Cup Finals, who did Robinson again replace Sykora with after he was knocked out by Hatcher? I don't think it's a coincidence to overlook Mogilny being on the ice for two series clinching goals.

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

Damn, we are really crapping on the influence Mogilny had on these two playoffs huh? Mogilny was acquired by Lou at the deadline to add another scoring threat to his 2/3rd line to take the pressure off of the A-line (Arnott, Elias, Sykora). And it did exactly that. While he didn't exactly light it up in 2000, teams were forced to balance their checking line between 2 lines.

In the last minutes of game 7 vs Philly in the Conference Finals, who did Robinson replace Sykora with on the top line and led to the subsequent GW by Elias? In game 6 of Stanley Cup Finals, who did Robinson again replace Sykora with after he was knocked out by Hatcher? I don't think it's a coincidence to overlook Mogilny being on the ice for two series clinching goals.

I mean, Mogilny was pretty useful as a decoy.... that's why I'd probably rank him higher than his linemates Gomez or Brylin, despite not outscoring them.

I think it's easy to mix memories between 2000 and 2000-01. Mogilny was GREAT in 2000-01 (until the finals). In 2000, he made some contributions, but wasn't what I would call a key player.

Which of those guys that I ranked over Mogilny do you think he was more important than? I guess I can see an argument for Daneyko... though I think the Rafalski/Niedermayer/Daneyko trio of secondary defensemen really helped that team control the game more often than not.

 

[frisco]

Kariya for me is a tricky one. Injuries really stopped him from being special for a long time ala Mike Bossy.
Kariya is still the better player.
He is borderline HOF to me at best.
You make the case for Mogilny but not Turgeon yet Turgeon has the better numbers than Alex.
I love Pierre but also feel he is borderline and better than Alex. And what about LeClair?
PALFFY shouldn't get in either.
IMO Mogilny has Hall of Fame talent but was not consistent enough.
and He was a JAG on NJ

I'm definitely pro-Turgeon.

No on Palffy (only 713 points and a lack of really big seasons to balance that out), LeClair (five great years but all with Lindros and 643 points), Kariya (borderline but I'd take Mogilny ahead of him but it is close).

I wouldn't really compare Kariya with Mike Bossy even adjusting for era, etc., Bossy is the all-time goals/game leader with four Cups. Kariya barely breaks the top 100 (Mogilny is #34).

Mogilny had his share of injuries, too. Had seven goals in seven playoff games in 1993 before breaking his leg and that really hampered him for a long time. Mogilny never fit in year #1 in NJ and gets a lot of grief for that but he scored 43 in year two and got them to game seven of the Finals.

My Best-Carey

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

a user posted his transcription of an hourlong swedish radio special with markus naslund on the canucks board. here are the relevant parts about mogilny, whom he saw at the 1989 world championships when it was in sweden (and, he implies, patterned his wrist shot after), and later played with in vancouver.

an interesting take on mogilny's "free spirit," possibly from firsthand knowledge as those guys did play together for almost four seasons.

To be an NHL player is a fantastic privilege with a high salary and everything you want within reach. But if you don’t feel the love for the sport or if you don’t perform on the level that you want to the money is not worth as much. The circle needs to be drawn from happiness, if you focus on the money the circle will not close. The only one that was clear that he played for the money was Alexander Moginly. He had been forced to play ice hockey, been drilled since being a kid. Now he wanted to get payed for what the sport had taken from his life. How he managed to escape the closed Soviet system I will tell you about later.

...

During the WC that year in Sweden, the Russian player Alexander Moginly was the most promising player. The next big star up in the sky in the east. A lightning fast goal scorer. He was the one who developed the technique ‘quick release’. Instead of dragging the puck, he shot without any backswing which made it almost impossible for the goalies to see when he was going to shoot. It sounds easy but it’s incredibly hard. To win when playing ice hockey in Soviet was to prove that the communist system was the best. Sports were warfare. The sports were used as politics and the wins at the rinks scored propaganda points.

“Real men play ice hockey, cowards don’t play ice hockey” is said in the documentary film ‘Red Army’. About the compulsive conditions where the Russians were raised. But Moginly hadn’t been allowed to choose anything. He was born with a talent, was taken care off by the Russian system. The only possibility for a decent life was to score for the motherland in front of the world in the stands, to declare the super nations strength. If he chose to quit or stop developing all the advantages were gone.

The WC was the time when the Russian bear was supposed to rise on Swedish ground to bring back the gold. Moginly didn’t want to participate anymore, he decided to drop out. All the players behind the iron curtain was also soldiers in the Red Army. Therefor a drop out would count as a desertion, with a chance of being executed. He told his family goodbye without knowing if he would get to see them again or if they would get punished for his flight. For the nights when the team had been locked in, the humiliation when he missed the goal and for all the goals he had been snubbed on. He now wanted to become rich, free and take the power over his own life.

4 months prior to the WC in Sweden Moginly had been playing in the WJC in Alaska. He was handed a business card by an American with the promise to “Call me if you ever need help”. The WC in Sweden became a triumph for the attuned and well disciplined CCCP, and with steady steps in the same pace they were reaching closer to the WC triumph. One night there’s a call from Sweden to the Buffalo Sabres head of development Don Luce in New York. A man is claiming to represent the Russian star and wonders if he can help them to drop out. Luce is awake, with the fear of the business card he handed Moginly to be in the wrong hands he first pretended to be unaware. He asks to talk directly to the player and the phone is handed over. Luce asks some specific questions about their meeting in Alaska. About the time, colors on the walls and the place. He judges the wish as sincere and the position they’re in is now sharp. He promises to try to help Moginly and gets on the first flight to Sweden. If Soviet won the WC as planned, they would be allowed to walk freely in a Swedish shopping center for a couple of hours. They were in a hurry, the map and plan had to be made while running. To smuggle hockey players had never been done before, so a lot of creativity and courage was needed. It was the player that would get punished if they didn’t succeed.

Soviet wins the WC and when their player bus rolls up to the shopping center the spring weather is nice and calm. Like a flock of sheep in sweatpants and sneakers, a bunch of Russian hockey players were carted off the bus by coaches and guards. The flock was moving slowly towards the entrance when a car headed up to the bus. Alexander Moginly never turned around when he ran towards the car where Luce was waiting. The KGB agents reacted too late and couldn’t catch up to their running diamond who escaped with a burnout. Everyone had seen what has happened, but no one had understood what was going on.

The chase is on and now the paperwork starts. Each drop out was a victory for the west world and a loss for the east. Also, a threat that more people might follow his steps. He was 20 years old and a futuristic hope for the nation and he had chosen the enemy over the motherland. The only one that was breathing calmly when hotels were changed in Stockholm hour after hour was the object himself, Alexander Moginly. You can’t regret something that can’t be changed.

The 7th of May 1989 the plane with Alexander Moginly finally landed at LaGuardia in New York. Two days later Moginly was applying for political asylum and let it be known that he was going to play for the Buffalo Sabres. Alexander Moginly played 17 seasons in the NHL, he was the first Russian star in the NHL and the first European to become a captain in the NHL.

We played together in the Vancouver Canucks. He had the number 89 on his back to always remember the year he got away and made it there. I had just left the coldness in Pittsburg for the yearning in Vancouver. I would make my dreams come true and do the only thing I wanted. Moginly was about to take back what was stolen from him by doing the only thing he had been taught. For me, ice hockey was about my self-esteem, identity and person. He only did what was needed, no love. We built our lives around ice hockey but with different reasons. My fortune was unfortunate for Moginly, I got the chance when he got injured.

 

[blood gin]

The whole "Free Spirit" stuff was not well received during his career. He was rather viewed as inconsistent, apathetic, flaky, and lacking a lot of outward emotion. Not sure how fair these assessments were.

His talent level was so enormous and because of that 76 goal season expectations were super high for him the rest of his career. He's score 30 goals and would be criticized for playing half speed a good chunk of the year