When the Hockey Hall of Fame (HHOF) selection committee meets on Monday June 27th in Toronto, they’ll have the opportunity to right a glaring omission from their hallowed halls.
Daniel Alfredsson, retired since 2014, has been on the outside looking in when it comes to the HHOF for several years now. A fact the soft spoken Swede has downplayed personally, but has stuck in the craw of many a Sens fan for the past few induction classes.
The omission, which in and of itself is rather bizarre given Alfredsson’s NHL and International hockey resume, recently spawned the #AlfieToTheHall campaign on social media, which has been trending on Twitter in Canada over the past week.
With the recent passing of team owner Eugene Melnyk, who had a complicated relationship with the former face of his franchise, even the team itself has begun to rally around their former great. Over the past few days everyone from former teammates, to team execs, and even the original ownership group has been singing Alfie’s praises in a bid to finally see his name called on induction day.
While Habs and Leafs fans will undoubtedly have their share of one liners and tongue in cheek comments at the ready, from a strictly objective point of view, Daniel Alfredsson deserves to be in the Hockey Hall of Fame.
The longest serving captain in Senators history, Alfredsson weathered the storm of the franchise’s expansion years and helped shape Ottawa into a perennial playoff team in the Nation’s Capital. Of the 10 longest serving captains in league history that are retired, only Daniel Alfredsson isn’t in the HHOF.
The Swedish winger racked up 1,157pts (444G, 713A) in 1,246 games played, good for 0.93ppg over the course of a 19 year career. His point total puts him 55th all time in league scoring and 8th all time in NHL history for any non-Canadian/American skater, trailing only Jagr, Mikita, Stastny, Selanne, Kurri, Ovechkin, Fedorov, and Sundin.
On a local level, Alfredsson holds virtually every Senators franchise record including most regular season goals, assists, and points, highest single season +/- rating (+42 set in 2006-07), most points in a single game (7pts scored in 2007-08), and playoff records for most games played, goals, assists, and points.
The one knock that Alfredsson detractors continually bring up is his lack of a Stanley Cup ring. However if the number of times one’s name appears on the Stanley Cup is the sole metric to be used when discussing all time greats, then clearly names like Claude Provost, Jean-Guy Talbot, and Larry Hillman are right up there with the likes of Gretzky, Orr, and Lemieux.
While his name may not be etched into hockey’s greatest prize, he’s far from the only Hall of Fame worthy player to fall into that category. Marcel Dionne, Dale Hawerchuk, Peter Stastny, Adam Oates, Jean Ratelle, Mike Gartner, Eric Lindros, and Phil Housley are just some of the greats who fell short of hoisting the cup but were nonetheless enshrined.
And for as much grief as Alfie gets from Toronto fans, the “no cup = no hall” argument certainly can’t be held against him by the Blue & White faithful. Afterall, Mats Sundin, Borje Salming, and Darryl Sittler may need to have their membership revoked if winning the Stanley Cup is an absolute necessity to get in.
For although he may not have had his day with the cup, Alfredsson’s trophy cabinet is far from bare. A 6x All-Star, the former 6th round selection won the Calder Trophy as the NHL’s top rookie in 1996, and also brought home the King Clancy Memorial Trophy and Mark Messier Leadership Award in 2012 and 2013 respectively.
He won a Swedish Elite League championship with Frolunda HC during the 2004-05 lockout, while leading the league in playoff scoring with 18pts (12G, 6A) in 14 games. He then followed that up with an Olympic gold medal in 2006 and a silver in 2014 with Sweden. Sprinkle in another 3 bronze medals and 2 more silvers with the Tre Kronor at the World Championships and there’s an argument to be made that number 11’s international resume stacks up well against the other top European forwards of his generation.
Which is why context matters when it comes to potential Hall of Fame inductees. Those selected for the HHOF should have a proven track record of being one of the best players in the league for an extended period of time. And in that regard Alfredsson was unquestionably one of the best players of the 2000’s.
While fans in Ottawa will remember him for his prolific ability to produce free slices of pizza for ticket holders as part of the “CASH” or “Pizza Line” with Jason Spezza and Dany Heatley, the numbers prove that it’s more than just nostalgia on the part of Sens fans. Of all skaters in the league between 2000-2009, only Joe Thornton and Jarome Iginla had more points than Alfredsson (and Iginla needed 39 more games to edge past him by 1pt).
| Overall | |||||||||
| Rk | Name | Born | Pos | GP | G | A | P | PIM | +/- |
| 1 | Joe Thornton | 1979 | F | 698 | 243 | 580 | 823 | 715 | 139 |
| 2 | Jarome Iginla | 1977 | F | 713 | 350 | 374 | 724 | 576 | 76 |
| 3 | Daniel Alfredsson | 1972 | F | 674 | 276 | 447 | 723 | 313 | 142 |
| 4 | Marian Hossa | 1979 | F | 687 | 319 | 364 | 683 | 407 | 114 |
| 5 | Martin St. Louis | 1975 | F | 703 | 263 | 396 | 659 | 206 | 22 |
| 6 | Vincent Lecavalier | 1980 | F | 707 | 288 | 356 | 644 | 558 | -61 |
| 7 | Ilya Kovalchuk | 1983 | F | 621 | 338 | 304 | 642 | 437 | -75 |
| 8 | Jaromír Jágr | 1972 | F | 548 | 259 | 382 | 641 | 356 | 87 |
| 9 | Brad Richards | 1980 | F | 700 | 192 | 447 | 639 | 153 | -73 |
| 10 | Dany Heatley | 1981 | F | 589 | 299 | 326 | 625 | 510 | 61 |
| 11 | Alexei Kovalev | 1973 | F | 681 | 247 | 356 | 603 | 664 | -19 |
| 12 | Markus Näslund | 1973 | F | 640 | 269 | 324 | 593 | 441 | 17 |
| 13 | Pavel Datsyuk | 1978 | F | 606 | 198 | 394 | 592 | 157 | 176 |
| 14 | Marc Savard | 1977 | F | 606 | 173 | 419 | 592 | 610 | -34 |
| 15 | Patrik Elias | 1976 | F | 642 | 242 | 348 | 590 | 321 | 150 |
| 16 | Milan Hejduk | 1976 | F | 675 | 285 | 296 | 581 | 242 | 121 |
| 17 | Joe Sakic | 1969 | F | 526 | 222 | 359 | 581 | 246 | 74 |
| 18 | Patrick Marleau | 1979 | F | 717 | 269 | 307 | 576 | 251 | 16 |
| 19 | Henrik Sedin | 1980 | F | 728 | 138 | 434 | 572 | 418 | 132 |
| 20 | Scott Gomez | 1979 | F | 702 | 141 | 426 | 567 | 440 | 47 |
| 21 | Alex Tanguay | 1979 | F | 663 | 186 | 380 | 566 | 355 | 149 |
| 22 | Shane Doan | 1976 | F | 717 | 228 | 337 | 565 | 651 | -8 |
| 23 | Mats Sundin | 1971 | F | 580 | 236 | 325 | 561 | 504 | 50 |
| 24 | Mark Recchi | 1968 | F | 708 | 202 | 350 | 552 | 379 | -29 |
| 25 | Nicklas Lidström | 1970 | D | 719 | 116 | 434 | 550 | 284 | 235 |
Unfortunately when people think of the term “dominant player”, they picture 6’5” Mats Sundin, 6’4” Joe Thornton, or prototypical power forwards like Jarome Iginla. What they don’t picture is a generously listed 5’11” Swede, with flowing locks of hair that likes to frequent late night ping pong bars after games.
But when it comes to on ice dominance, the numbers prove that Alfredsson was not just “hanging with the big boys”, he was often outperforming them as well. Of the recent HHOF inductees, and several players who hope to hear their name called soon, Alfie had the highest career points per game output of all of them:
| Player | GP | G | A | PTS | PPG |
| Jarome Iginla | 1554 | 625 | 675 | 1300 | 0.84 |
| Daniel Alfredsson | 1246 | 444 | 713 | 1157 | 0.93 |
| Marian Hossa | 1309 | 525 | 609 | 1134 | 0.86 |
| Henrik Sedin | 1330 | 240 | 830 | 1070 | 0.81 |
| Daniel Sedin | 1306 | 393 | 648 | 1041 | 0.8 |
| Martin St. Louis | 1134 | 391 | 642 | 1033 | 0.91 |
| Henrik Zetterberg | 1082 | 337 | 623 | 960 | 0.89 |
Therefore if Alfredsson doesn’t hear his name called again this year, what does that mean for his fellow countrymen Daniel and Henrik Sedin, and Henrik Zetterberg?
Ian Mendes recently pointed out another damning fact against Alfie’s omission in a column for The Athletic stating, “In the history of the National Hockey League, there are only 15 Hall of Fame eligible players who racked up 1,000 career points with one franchise and served as their captain for at least 5 seasons. Curiously, all of them are in the Hall of Fame – with the exception of Daniel Alfredsson”.
Taking this a step further, each of the other 14 players are not only in the HHOF, but they made it as first ballot selections. At a certain point it almost feels as though voters are looking for reasons NOT to vote for Daniel Alfredsson, rather than looking at his career objectively.
Call it a Toronto bias, or chalk it up to not playing in a big market. But you can’t sit there and tell Sens fans that if you took Alfredsson’s career, cloned it, and put him in a New York Rangers jersey that he wouldn’t be in the Hall of Fame already.
Ottawa fans can live with the fact that he didn’t make it on the first ballot. But voters need to get it right this time around. Hopefully now with the full backing of the organization, current and former players, and a grassroots social media campaign spearheaded by the fanbase 2022 will be the year that number 11 gets his long overdue nod.
#AlfieToTheHall
-Kyle Skinner
Twitter: @JKyleSkinner