Alexander Mogilny

The Hockey Hall of Fame has officially announced its 2025 class in a series of X posts. The former NHL players headlining the class in their first year of eligibility are Zdeno Chára, Duncan Keith, and Joe Thornton, while Alexander Mogilny has finally been inducted after a decades-long wait.

The full class of new Hall of Famers, including women’s players and builders, is as follows:

Chára: A seven-time All-Star who captained the Bruins to the Stanley Cup in 2011, the 6’9″ defenseman was also a six-time Norris Trophy finalist and won the award in 2009. Known more for his two-way prowess than his pure offense or shutdown ability, he was a top-four threat well into his 40s and sits seventh on the all-time leaderboard with 1,680 regular-season appearances, passing Chris Chelios for most among defensemen in his final season with the Islanders three years ago. He’s already in the IIHF Hall of Fame and helped his native Slovakia to silver medals at the 2000 and 2012 World Championships. (X link)

Keith: Like Chára, Keith was one of the most dominating two-way defenders of the salary cap era. While he doesn’t have the career length or end-to-end consistency Chára boasted, Keith’s peaks were higher, particularly offensively, and he was the Blackhawks’ undisputed top defender on their Stanley Cup wins in 2010, 2013, and 2015. He played 17 NHL seasons, the first 16 of which came in a Chicago uniform. He averaged over 23 minutes per game in all of those seasons and was a two-time Norris finalist, winning it on both occasions in 2010 and 2014. He fell short of breaking Doug Wilson‘s record for all-time points by a Blackhawks defender but ranks second with 625 in 1,192 games. It’s worth noting his 421 even-strength points are more than Wilson’s 408, though. (X link)

Thornton: One of the best playmakers of all time, he’s the only men’s player in the class to not win a Cup and is arguably the best player of all time with that dubious distinction. It won’t stop him from being a first-ballot Hall of Famer, though. The four-time All-Star led the league in assists for three straight seasons coming out of the 2004-05 lockout and won the league scoring title in 2005-06, recording 96 assists in 125 points in a season that involved one of the most consequential trades in league history, sending Thornton from Boston to San Jose. Thornton remained with the Sharks in 2020 before ending his career on a pair of one-year deals with the Maple Leafs and Panthers. He ranks sixth in league history with 1,714 games played, seventh in assists (1,190), and 14th in points (1,539). Thornton’s 96 assists were the most in a single season in the salary cap era until Nikita Kucherov and Connor McDavid each hit the century mark in 2023-24. (X link)

Mogilny: Mogilny, one of the game’s true trailblazers, finally gets the call to the Hall in his 17th year of eligibility. The boxcar case was always pretty strong: a two-time All-Star, a Stanley Cup with the Devils in 2001, and 1,032 career points in only 990 games cemented him as one of the top scorers of the 1990s and early 2000s. Yet, Mogilny’s off-ice impact led to the most puzzlement about his frequent omission from the HHOF classes. He was the first player to defect from the Soviet Union and join the NHL successfully, joining the Sabres as a 20-year-old for the 1989-90 season. Aside from the NHL-run 1996 World Cup of Hockey, he never represented Russia internationally after doing so. Nonetheless, he won Olympic and World Championship gold medals as a teenager and is thus one of seven Russian members of the Triple Gold Club. He now serves as the president of Amur Khabarovsk of the Kontinental Hockey League. (X link)

Jennifer Botterill: One of the most decorated Canadian women’s players of all time, Botterill retired in 2011 before professional women’s hockey truly took off. Nonetheless, she won five World Championship gold medals (1999, 2000, 2001, 2004, 2007) and was a two-time MVP at the tournament. She also helped Canada to Olympic gold in 2002, 2006, and 2010, posting a 4-11–15 scoring line in 21 games there. She also recorded 340 points in just 113 games during her four-year NCAA career at Harvard. (X link)

Brianna Decker: Decker, 34, is one of the few women’s players to get in on her first year of eligibility. She retired in 2022 after representing the United States at the Olympics for the third time, winning gold there back in 2018. She also won six World Championships (2011, 2013, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2019) and won an Isobel Cup championship with the Boston Pride of the National Women’s Hockey League in 2016. She scored 60 points in 33 NWHL games over two seasons and also added 58 points in 35 games in the CWHL. (X link)

Jack Parker: Already in the U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame as a builder, the 80-year-old Parker now gets the call to the Hall 12 years after his retirement. He’s one of the winningest coaches in NCAA history, serving as Boston University’s head coach from 1973-74 all the way until his retirement – a 40-year run. He was a seven-time Hockey East champion with the Terriers and won NCAA Coach of the Year honors in 1975, 1978, and 2009. (X link)

Danièle Sauvageau: Sauvageau makes history as the first woman to be inducted into the HHOF as a builder. She was also the first woman to coach in the QMJHL when she was named an assistant with the Montreal Rocket for the 1999-00 season. She currently serves as the GM of the PWHL’s Montreal Victoire and coached Canada to a gold medal at the 2002 Winter Olympics. (X link)

Image courtesy of Anne-Marie Sorvin-USA TODAY Sports.