The 7 Biggest Snubs from the 2024 Hockey Hall of Fame Class

So, you thought hockey was done for the summer, eh?

Wrong.

Slump-shouldered Edmonton Oilers fans had barely cleared out their Miami-area hotel rooms by the time the Hockey Hall of Fame was making Tuesday headlines with the announcement of its 2024 class of inductees.

The sport's newest group of legends included high-profile NHL players Pavel Datsyuk, Jeremy Roenick and Shea Weber, ex-player and longtime league executive Colin Campbell, recently retired Nashville Predators general manager David Poile, former U.S. national women's team captain Natalie Darwitz and two-time Olympic medalist Krissy Wendell-Pohl.

Induction ceremonies are set for November 11 in Toronto.

Of course, for every victory party, there's another that'll have to be scrubbed.

Toward that end, the B/R hockey team came down from its Stanley Cup Final buzz to discuss those who were left on the outside looking in, eventually coming up with a list of the seven biggest snubs from this year's class—based on numbers, legacies and other factors.

Take a look at what we came up with and drop a thought of your own in the comments.

You can make your arguments based on whatever you'd like.

When it comes to Jennifer Botterill, ours is based on math.

No female player has produced as many points on the NCAA level as the four-year star at Harvard, whose 340 across 113 games from 1998 through 2003 are hard to miss. She's such an O.G. that her first two years in crimson came before women's hockey was a sport sanctioned by the administration.

But even if that's not enough, she supplemented her case with consecutive gold medals with Team Canada in the 2002, 2006 and 2010 Olympics, alongside a professional playing career that spanned six seasons with a points-per-game clip of 1.86, and a post-playing career that's included steady work as an analyst with Sportsnet, Hockey Night in Canada and TNT.

Now that the glass ceiling for women has been broken, she deserves to break through, too.

If only Alex Mogilny had been born a generation later.

Were that the case, the dynamic Russian's candidacy would be largely in the hands of team social media gurus who'd make his on-ice artistry a daily go-to for device-bearing fans.

And we wouldn't be having this conversation.

Instead, the man who arrived in Buffalo as a precocious 20-year-old and teamed with a young, healthy Pat LaFontaine to make the Sabres one of the league's most exciting teams, on the way to a 16-season career and a Stanley Cup ring, is on the outside looking in.

But it's not just about the highlights. The guy was a player and a leader, too.

Mogilny was the NHL's first Russian-born team captain, its first Russian-born All-Star, and became one of the first two non-North Americans to lead the league in goals when he and Finland's Teemu Selanne netted 76 apiece in 1992-93.

If that's not enough, it's difficult to fathom what could be.

Some guys just ooze hockey.

From the way they look to the way they talk to the way they carry themselves, after one look at them there's simply no other occupation you could imagine them having.

Rod Brind'Amour is one of those guys.

He wears the scars earned through 1,484 NHL regular-season games and another 159 in the playoffs, a stretch in which he played for three teams, captained two of them, produced 452 goals and 1,184 points, and hoisted the Stanley Cup with the Carolina Hurricanes in 2006.

He ended his playing career with the Hurricanes after the 2009-10 season and graduated to coaching, ultimately taking the team over in 2018 and leading it to six consecutive playoff appearances and a Jack Adams Award as the league's top coach in 2021.

Was he ever the league's best player? No. But two Selke Awards, an All-Star appearance and a jump seat for a championship parade, alongside a so-far successful run behind the bench, make for a pretty compelling Hall case.

At the intersection of very good and very fortunate, there's Chris Osgood.

In the estimation of some, anyway.

We humbly disagree. And, to us anyway, it's easy to see why:

Numbers don't lie.

The Alberta native was drafted by the Detroit Red Wings and played 565 of his 744 NHL games with them across two particularly successful stints that yielded three All-Star Game nods, two Jennings trophies and three Stanley Cups between them.

He's the only goalie in NHL history to win more than 400 games and lose fewer than 250, sits 13th in all-time regular-season wins and ninth in playoff wins, and is tied for fifth in playoff shutouts.

Did he play on some terrific and prolific teams? Absolutely.

But that hasn't stopped goalies like Grant Fuhr for the 1980s-era Edmonton Oilers and Tom Barrasso from the early 1990s Pittsburgh Penguins from being inducted, so it shouldn't here either, given Osgood's durability and particular prowess come playoff time.

Some warrant inclusion for their blockbuster seasons.

Others make the list for a body of stellar, albeit less-celebrated work.

Patrik Eliáš is one of the latter.

The Czech-born winger played a remarkable 20 seasons in the NHL and was a respected and productive player from start to finish, spending his entire career with the New Jersey Devils and winding up as the franchise's leader in goals (408), assists (617) and points (1,025).

He surpassed 30 goals three times and reached a high watermark of 40 once, was the league's plus-minus leader, played in the All-Star Game four times—including two appearances 15 years apart in 2000 and 2015—and hoisted the Stanley Cup two times.

His candidacy is boosted by his status as a prototype "money player," yielding career leads for the Devils in playoff goals, assists and points, as well as the most points in a single playoff season, most game-winning goals, and both most overtime and goals and assists.

If only Henrik Zetterberg hadn't gotten hurt.

He had a terrific NHL career that included 1,082 games across parts of 15 seasons, but perhaps it's the time spent on the shelf—including the final three years on his final NHL contract—that's got him on this list and not the other.

Suiting up for a fraction of those games would have gotten Zetterberg nearer the career thresholds of 400 goals (he finished with 332) and/or 1,000 points (960), which may have tipped the scales on both longevity and virtuosity. But to suggest he needs it seems a reach.

Zetterberg was surely on a short list of the league's best players during his prime, scoring 30-plus goals three times and surpassing 40 in 2007-08, when he posted career-highs across the board with 43 goals, 49 assists and 92 points in 75 games.

His 13 goals and 27 points in those playoffs were the league's best and helped the Red Wings to a championship, and his membership in the exclusive Triple Gold Club—Olympic gold, World Championship gold, Stanley Cup—breaks a lot of enshrinement ties.

Or at least it ought to.

The aforementioned Alex Mogilny made an earlier Hall case for Russian forwards.

Sergei Gonchar makes it here for the Russian rearguards.

The 6'2", 210-pounder from Chelyabinsk was among the best his country has produced on the blue line at the NHL level, retiring following the 2014-15 season with career marks of 220 goals and 811 points that still stand for Russian-born defensemen.

He was a first-round pick of the Washington Capitals in 1992 and played with them for parts of 10 seasons before a trade sent him to Boston and free agency landed him in Pittsburgh, where he played with a young Evgeni Malkin and Sidney Crosby, won a Stanley Cup in 2009, and posted 50 or more points in each of the four full seasons he played.

Gonchar's 128 goals were tops among NHL defensemen from 2000-10 and his 500 points were second only to Detroit's Nicklas Lidstrom, who was inducted in 2015.

He returned to the Penguins' organization as a defensive coach and was on board for two more Stanley Cups in 2016 and 2017, then joined former teammate Rick Tocchet's staff in Vancouver in early 2023. Another Cup there and he nears no-brainer Hall territory.