At this point, it's getting ridiculous.
Former Vancouver Canucks star Alexander Mogilny has been eligible to go into the Hockey Hall of Fame since 2009 and has been one of the Hall's most egregious snubs every year since. The class of 2023 will be no different, as Mogilny has once again been inexplicably frozen out of the Hall.
The inductees to the Hockey Hall of Fame in 2023 will be Henrik Lundqvist, Tom Barrasso, Mike Vernon, Pierre Turgeon, and Caroline Ouellette, as well as Ken Hitchcock and Pierre Lacroix in the builders category.
Mogilny was an all-time great goalscorer
Mogilny's case for induction can be made both on and off the ice and is immensely stronger than that of Turgeon, who was a very good player for a very long time but never one of the players in the upper echelon that typically results in a spot in the Hall.
On the ice, Mogilny was one of the NHL's top goalscorers of his era, with a mind-bending 76 goals in 77 games for the Buffalo Sabres in the 1992-93 season that would have won him the Rocket Richard trophy had it existed at the time. That 76 goals is the fifth-best goal-scoring season in NHL history, tied with Teemu Selanne, who also scored 76 goals that very same season, and Phil Esposito.
Mogilny's 473 career goals is just outside of the top 50 all-time, but he vaults up to 33rd in goals-per-game among players with at least 500 games played. Turgeon has more goals at 515 but also played 304 more career games: he's 100th in goals-per-game.
The Hockey Hall of Fame typically favours players who made the First or Second All-Star Teams, as that indicates they were one of the best players at their position at the time. Mogilny was a Second-Team All-Star twice — once with the Canucks. Turgeon never made an All-Star Team and never finished any higher than sixth in his position in All-Star voting.
If it's winning that matters, Mogilny is one of just 29 members of the "Triple Gold Club" with a Stanley Cup, Olympic gold medal, and World Championship gold medal. Turgeon never won the Stanley Cup and never even represented Team Canada at the Olympics or World Championships. To be fair, the first Olympics that allowed NHL players in 1998 was after Turgeon's peak.
None of this is meant as a slight to Turgeon. It's just illustrative of how absurd it is that Mogilny is not in the Hockey Hall of Fame already. When The Athletic created their own induction committee, Mogilny was a unanimous selection; Turgeon didn't even get nominated.
And that's before considering Mogilny's off-ice story.
A trailblazer for Russian players
Mogilny was the first NHL player to defect from the Soviet Union, coming to North America at tremendous personal risk. That makes him an iconic trailblazer, the type of player that should obviously be in the Hockey Hall of Fame because you cannot tell the story of hockey without him.
When he was 20 years old, Mogilny won gold with the Soviet national team at the 1989 World Championship and he and his teammates were allowed to celebrate with a rare day at the mall in Stockholm, Sweden. That's where he was met by Sabres head of player development Don Luce and general manager Gerry Meehan, with Mogilny sprinting to their car while being pursued by who Luce believed to be Soviet agents.
Mogilny and Luce had to hide from the KGB by hopping from hotel to hotel as Meehan worked with the U.S. Consulate to get Mogilny cleared to enter the U.S. and apply for political asylum.
It wasn't a decision made lightly. As a player with CSKA — known as Central Red Army — Mogilny was officially an officer in the Soviet military making him not just a defector but also a deserter.
Mogilny’s boldness and bravery led to more Russian players defecting from the Soviet Union and for others to push to be allowed to leave for the NHL without defecting.
In another trailblazing moment, Mogilny was also the first Russian-born player to serve as captain of an NHL team when he wore the “C” for the Buffalo Sabres in the 1993-94 season while Pat LaFontaine was injured.
With both incredible on-ice accomplishments and an incredible off-ice story, it literally strains credibility that Mogilny is not already in the Hockey Hall of Fame.
