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While the number of players allowed on the ice going up to 12, the NHL Draft Lottery, and the potential announcement of hub cities will be front and center, the most noteworthy news coming this week could be the announcement of the 2020 class for the Hockey Hall of Fame.
The group will likely include the newly eligible Jarome Iginla and Marian Hossa, with others like Daniel Alfredsson and Keith Tkachuk getting strong consideration, but a number of deserving former Leafs have been passed over for years and should eventually get in. Here are five possible future inductees:
Mogilny was a spectacular scoring winger who netted 473 goals over 15 NHL seasons with Buffalo, Vancouver, New Jersey and Toronto. The Russian sniper scored 76 goals with the Sabres in 1993, another 50 goal season with the Canucks, and won a Cup with the Devils.
“Cujo… is in the running with Mike Palmateer and Felix Potvin for best Leaf goaltender in the post-expansion era, with 133 victories in four seasons and two trips to the Eastern Conference Final.
With six NHL clubs from 1989 to 2009, Joseph ranks sixth all-time in games played, seventh all-time with 454 wins (after being passed by Marc-Andre Fleury and Henrik Lundqvist this season) and had a number of notable performances in the postseason, but did not win a Stanley Cup and ranked third in career losses.
His Leaf career consisted of four games filling in for an injured Joseph at the end of the 2002 regular season, but in a 19-year NHL career Barrasso made the jump from Massachusetts high school hockey to winning the Calder and Vezina Trophy and being named NHL first team All-Star with Buffalo in 1984, the Jennings Trophy in 1985 and two straight Cup victories in 1991 and 1992 with Pittsburgh.
An old-timer that has slipped through the cracks, Chabot is a two-time Stanley Cup winner (with the Rangers and Leafs) and Vezina Trophy winner (1935 – Chicago) who spent five of his 11-year career in Toronto. Ranked by the Hockey News as one of the top 20 goalies in NHL history, he is 12th all-time with 73 career shutouts.
Chabot is at distinct disadvantage since there are no witnesses who saw him play still around, making an evaluation of his bonafides as a Hall-of-Famer mostly a statistic analysis.
Henderson is far from just a sentimental choice. He was a very good NHLer with Detroit, was part of the package sent to Toronto in 1968 for Frank Mahovlich, who scored more than 20 goals in five of his six full seasons with the Leafs and spent five seasons in the WHA (with Toronto and Birmingham), finishing with 376 career goals.
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— Michael Augello (@MikeInBuffalo) June 22, 2020
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