Who makes the Hockey Hall of Fame Class of 2024? Here are our predictions

He’s a Triple Gold Club member, winning the Stanley Cup twice with the Detroit Red Wings, the IIHF World Championship with Russia in 2012 and Olympic gold in the 2018 Pyeongchang Games as an “Olympic Athlete from Russia.”

For his achievements, his influence and his unbelievable talent, Datsyuk shouldn’t have to wait long for Hall of Fame induction — theoretically.

2. Alexander Mogilny, right wing (15th year)

Mogilny is uniquely positioned as a player who has the numbers and the championship achievement of other inductees while — most importantly — having played an integral role in one of hockey history’s seminal moments. His years-running snub by the Hall has earned annual callouts by fans and media.

Mogilny is 35th among inactive NHL players in points-per-game average (1.042), and nearly everyone ahead of him on that list is in the Hall of Fame. He’s 56th all-time in goals scored (473) and 58th in adjusted goals (480), which ties him with Hall of Famer Guy Lafleur. He’s 38th all-time in goals-per-game average (0.478). He’s 55th in offensive points share, which is Hockey Reference’s spin on wins above replacement. Every single eligible player ahead of him — save for one we’ll mention later — is in the Hall. All of that was achieved while he played the majority of his games in the defensive trap era.

He’s a Triple Gold Club member, having won the Stanley Cup in 2000 with the New Jersey Devils, 1988 Olympic gold and the 1989 IIHF World Championship with the Soviet Union.

It was after those world championships in Sweden that Mogilny became the first Soviet player to defect to North America in 1989. The door between the NHL and the Soviet Union was creaking open for past-their-prime veterans and national-team role players. But Mogilny was 20 years old and an absolute star. It was an important milestone in hockey history. It’s a story that needs to be told and retold. There’s no better way to ensure that than by enshrining Mogilny, among the many reasons to immortalize him.

3. Ilya Kovalchuk, left wing (first year)

Pidutti joked that for Kovalchuk to make the Hall of Fame, the selection committee is going to have to remember who he was first.

“No one’s really mentioned him in so long,” he said. “But I love his case. I think he played at the absolute wrong time for offense and on the worst teams.”

The first chapter of Kovalchuk’s hockey career was from 2001-02 through 2012-13, when he played 594 games with the Atlanta Thrashers and 222 games with the New Jersey Devils. In that span, he tallied 417 goals in 816 games, the most of any player. He ranked behind only Alex Ovechkin (0.62) in goals per game (0.51) for players who played at least 400 games in that span, tying him with Sidney Crosby.

He scored over 40 goals for six straight seasons, including over 50 goals twice, on some terrible Thrashers teams. Before he was traded to the Devils in 2010, leading them to the Stanley Cup Final in 2012, Kovalchuk had played just four postseason games in his career.

Chapter 2 was when he left New Jersey for the KHL, where he produced more than a point per game for St. Petersburg SKA. How much the selection committee values that league is anyone’s guess.

Then came Chapter 3, when Kovalchuk returned to the NHL for two journeyman years, playing for the Los Angeles Kings, Montreal Canadiens and Washington Capitals before returning to Russia.

He won IIHF World Championship gold twice (2008, 2009), world junior gold (2001) and Olympic gold at the 2018 Pyeongchang Games as an Olympic Athlete from Russia. If the selection committee values his international play and remembers his NHL dominance — albeit in the absence of team success — he belongs in the Hall.

4. Ryan Miller, goalie (first year)

One of the best arguments for Miller comes from his “peak years,” to which Pidutti gives a lot of credence.

“It’s easy to forget that for a while he had that invincibility vibe where everyone thought of him as perhaps the best goalie in the league,” he said.

From 2008-09 to 2011-12, Miller was third in wins (182) and fourth in save percentage (.919) while playing for a Buffalo Sabres team that was 21st in points percentage (.520). The apex of his career was 2009-10, when he won the Vezina Trophy, finished fourth for the Hart Trophy and became a superstar while backstopping Team USA to Olympic silver in Vancouver, losing gold in overtime to Sidney Crosby and the Canadians.

In that sense, he has a little bit of that Dominik Hasek argument: He was the best thing about some bad teams. Miller is 14th in career wins (391). Every player ahead of him who is eligible, save for Curtis Joseph and Chris Osgood, is already in the Hall.

5. Meghan Duggan, forward (third year)

Duggan won seven IIHF World Championship gold medals and captained the U.S. women’s Olympic hockey team to gold in the 2018 Pyeongchang Games. She won the 2011 Patty Kazmaier Memorial Award as the top women’s player in the NCAA while playing for Wisconsin.

Duggan was the first American men’s or women’s player to win seven consecutive world championship gold medals.

Zetterberg finished his career with 960 points in 1,082 games, including 337 goals. His greatest individual accomplishment was winning the Conn Smythe in the Red Wings’ 2008 Stanley Cup win. That ring earned him Triple Gold Club status, going with championships in the 2006 Olympics and the 2006 IIHF World Championship with Sweden.

But if the decision is Zetterberg or Brind’Amour, Pidutti is Team Zetterberg.

“I think Brind’Amour has been a bit retroactively lionized because he’s the coolest guy in the room and an awesome coach,” he said. “He was never really a top Selke candidate. And then he’s pushing 40 and he was just this incredibly interesting, intense warrior. He wins those two Selkes … I don’t want to say out of the blue, but if you look at the voting history, they kind of were. I think everyone remembers him being the best defensive forward in the league, and really wasn’t the case during his entire career.”

8. Jennifer Botterill, forward (10th year)

Outside of the Hall’s apparent inability to induct two women in the same class, there’s no reason either Duggan or Botterill shouldn’t have joined Caroline Ouellette in the Class of 2023.

Botterill helped Team Canada win Olympic gold in 2002, 2006 and 2010 and five IIHF World Championships, capturing MVP in that tournament twice. But it was her dominance in the NCAA that sets her apart. Playing with Harvard, she amassed 319 points in 113 games, scoring at least a point in all but one of her college games. She was the first player to win the Patty Kazmaier Memorial Award twice. Botterill also had 155 points in 78 Canadian Women’s Hockey League games.

There are two spots available in the women’s category each year. The selection committee has inducted two women in the same class only once: in 2010, when Cammi Granato and Angela James were the first female inductees. That needs to change.

9. Shea Weber, defenseman (first year)

Weber was never one of the league’s top offensive defensemen. His peaks were 23 goals and 56 points. But he played a ton (24:03 average time on ice) and was credited with being one of the league’s top physical defensemen.

“I think he’s a Hall of Famer,” Pidutti said. “He was at the top of the league for a really long time.”

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His strongest case is international success, having played a significant role on Canada’s gold medal-winning Olympic teams in 2010 and 2014 and its World Cup team in 2016. He won world championship gold (2007) and world junior gold (2005) as well.

That said, Pidutti said he likes Gonchar’s case more than Weber’s.

“He doesn’t have the Norris votes, but when you sort of look at his performance in his own era, I’ve got all day for Gonchar,” he said. “He also had some pretty significant playoff impact, too.”

Keep in mind the Hall of Fame might want to fast-track a defenseman for 2024, considering who’s coming onto the ballot in 2025: Zdeno Chara and Duncan Keith, both expected to be first-ballot choices.

10. Keith Tkachuk, center (10th year)

Tkachuk amassed 538 goals and 1,065 points in 1,201 games over his 18-season career. He led the league in goals only once (1996-97) but was otherwise a model of consistency. He’s 34th all-time in goals. Every player ahead of him who is Hall of Fame-eligible is enshrined. That offensive point shares stat we mentioned earlier with Mogilny? Tkachuk is the only player ahead of him (37th) who is eligible for the Hall but not in yet.

He won World Cup gold in 1996 and Olympic silver in 2002 but never the Stanley Cup. It’s a solid but unspectacular career, but those numbers are hard to ignore.

“I really like Tkachuk’s case. His goal scoring was off the charts. It’s just not as obvious because he’s a ‘Dead Puck era’ victim,” Pidutti said. “If he was playing in a neutral era, he’d already be in.”

The Patrick Marleau Question

Marleau is in his first year of eligibility for the Hall of Fame, and his candidacy raises a very compelling question: Does breaking the NHL record for career games played make him a hockey legend or just an accomplished compiler of stats?

But Marleau was a finalist for only one NHL award: the Lady Byng, for gentlemanly play, once. He was never one of the NHL’s elite players and played in the shadow of better players in San Jose like Joe Thornton and Joe Pavelski.

Yet his durability and consistency deserve to be lauded, as does his character as a player. His case will be a fascinating one. There’s no denying the enormity of the record he shattered. Consider that 38-year-old Dallas Stars defenseman Ryan Suter, the active player with the most games played, is currently over 400 games behind him.

Other first-year-eligible former NHLers

Among the other players in their first year of eligibility for the Hall of Fame, the most interesting case is Nashville Predators goalie Pekka Rinne, who won the Vezina Trophy in 2017-18 and was a finalist four times. He’s 20th in career wins and 19th in career shutouts. Internationally, he won silver in the 2014 world championships. Pidutti likes Miller’s Hall of Fame case better, he said, because Rinne had too many peaks and valleys in his career.

Other notable first-year players are forwards David Backes, Mikko Koivu and Travis Zajac; as well as defensemen Braydon Coburn and Niklas Hjalmarsson.

Big-name holdovers

Two players who made our top 10 last year are still waiting for the call: Brind’Amour, in his 11th year of eligibility, and goalie Curtis Joseph, in his 12th year. It might not be an encouraging sign for CuJo that three goalies were added to the Hall and he wasn’t one of them. The same might be said for Chris Osgood, who is 13th in career wins.

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After Tkachuk, the players with the greatest number of goals who aren’t in the Hall of Fame are Pat Verbeek (522), Jeremy Roenick (513) and Peter Bondra (503). Scoring winger Steve Larmer and former Columbus Blue Jackets and New York Rangers star Rick Nash also have their backers.

One interesting case to watch: New Jersey Devils forward Patrik Elias, who is starting to get the same kind of “did we sleep on how great this guy was?” buzz that Zubov received before his selection. He had 1,025 points in 1,240 career games for a franchise that didn’t always put a premium on offense. During his peak years from 1999-2000 to 2003-04, he was sixth in the league in goals and ninth in points in aggregate.

In the women’s category, Chu, Team Canada forward Meghan Agosta and goalie Shannon Szabados should be considered. Internationally, keep an eye on Swiss goalie Florence Schelling and Swedish goalie Kim Martin.

Final prediction for the Class of 2024

If there’s no Russian factor, then we’ll go with Pavel Datsyuk, Alex Mogilny and Shea Weber. If there is a Russian factor, then we’ll go with Keith Tkachuk, Shea Weber and Henrik Zetterberg.

Meghan Duggan and Jennifer Botterill will become the first double induction since the inaugural women’s class. Former Nashville Predators GM David Poile will be inducted as a builder.