Kyle McMahon
Registered User
- May 10, 2006
- 13,301
- 4,354
If Carbonneau played in Minnesota, you’d never have heard of him.
Would you have heard of Lowe if it were him? It's no secret that most bottom rung Hall of Famers benefitted from ideal circumstances and wouldn't have otherwise become Hall of Famers. Glenn Anderson, Clark Gillies, Dick Duff, Joe Nieuwendyk...none of them are going to the Hall if they didn't play most of their careers on elite teams.
In general, all the multi-Cup winners get one of these "best of the rest" inductions after the first ballot guys. Anderson was that guy for the Oilers. Or so it seemed. I had more or less assumed that Lowe's managerial track record had long since quashed any remote chance of him ever getting inducted. Even with the bad Carbonneau, Housley, and Andreychuk inductions occurring.
I'll say this, if voters in the 2040s treat the current generation the way the 1980s generation has been treated, expect to see guys like Ryan O'Reilly, Brent Seabrook, and Eric Staal getting inducted.