It’s Hall of Fame induction week, and the class of 2025 is an interesting one. Of the four players on the men’s side, we had two absolute locks (Zdeno Chara and Joe Thornton), plus one guy who was very close (Duncan Keith) and another who should have been (Alexander Mogilny). While you never quite know how the committee will judge a candidate, all four players absolutely felt like future Hall-of-Famers midway through their careers.
Many eventual HHOFers fit that pattern. That said, it’s possible for a player to feel like a borderline candidate in their prime, only to have the sort of finishing kick that flips them to a sure thing. We saw that with Marc-Andre Fleury, who I had as “not there yet” back in 2019 when he was already well into his mid-30s, but who added a Vezina to his trophy case two years later to seal the deal. Fellow goalie Sergei Bobrovsky was “very” close as recently as early 2024, then won back-to-back Cups and is essentially a lock. And in 2019, Shea Weber was a strong candidate who felt like he just needed to close the case – which he emphatically did with the Habs 2021 playoff run, leading to his induction last year.
Then again, some players start off looking like they’re on the HHOF fast track but then fade before the finish line. You never really know until a player’s career is over. And sometimes, we’re not even sure then.
That’s why it’s worthwhile checking in on a star player as their career is still going on. You won’t get a definitive answer, obviously, but there’s still value in a quick temperature check. We’ve been doing that for years, on this site and others. And a few years ago, we went back for another look at some veterans who’d been borderline calls before.
We’re going to do that again today, as we revisit the HHOF cases of six active players who might make for tricky calls.
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