While Lundqvist and Ouellette were slam-dunks, it’s long-overlooked selections who stand out.
“I definitely wasn’t sitting by the phone,” said Tom Barrasso.Year of the Snubs? That wouldn’t even do it justice. The Hockey Hall of Fame dug even deeper than that when it unveiled its Class of 2023 on Wednesday afternoon. If it wanted to honor the players perceived by the public as most overdue for induction, it might have leaned toward Curtis Joseph and Alexander Mogilny.
“I think as a player, you’re competitive, and you hold yourself in certain regard as to how you think your career was,” Barrasso said. “This is obviously the ultimate honor. Do you make that grade or not? It’s not for you to decide. It’s for others to decide. As time goes by you think, ‘Well, it’s not going to happen.’ You just grow to accept that, and you say ‘That’s OK, I’ll write down what my career was and I’m happy with that.
On the builder side, Ken Hitchcock and Pierre Lacroix had each accomplished more than enough to earn their nods. The innovative ‘Hitch’ has coached dominant teams across an incredible career that included a 1999 Stanley Cup and 849 wins, the fourth most in NHL history. Lacroix, posthumously inducted, built the dominant Colorado Avalanche teams of the mid-1990s through the early 2000s.Barrasso was long mentioned among the Hall’s most glaring omissions in debates from barrooms to Twitter.
“There’s people out there that are not pulling for you sometimes. That’s the way it goes. You don’t need to be posing with them. The people you need on your side are your teammates, your family, that’s what gets you through.”
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