While the 2025-26 Stanley Cup Champion was decided two weeks ago with the coronation of the Carolina Hurricanes, for us at Notinhalloffame, the season ends when the Hockey Hall of Fame makes their announcement of the newest class.

Today, the HHOF committee met and announced the newest members:

They are:

Patrice Bergeron, Player.  BOS, C, 2003-23.  Of all the eligible candidates for the Class of 2026, Patrice Bergeron was the only lock.  Bergeron won six Frank J. Selke Awards (and was the runner-up three times) as the game’s top defensive forward.  He dominated that trophy so much that it should be renamed after him!  Playing all 19 of his NHL seasons with the Boston Bruins, Bergeron scored 1,040 Points with a +289 and led Boston to a Stanley Cup Championship in 2011.   Individually, Bergeron also won the 2013 King Clancy Award and the coveted Mark Messier Leadership Award in 2021. 

Brian Burke, Builder.  Hmmm.  There is no doubt that Burke has a Hockey Hall of Fame resume.  He has been a high-level executive with the Hartford Whalers, Vancouver Canucks, Anaheim Ducks, Toronto Maple Leafs, Calgary Flames, and Pittsburgh Penguins, and is regarded as an asset with all teams he served, especially the Ducks, where, as their General Manager, he constructed a team that won the 2007 Stanley Cup.  He was also the GM for the United States team that won Silver at the 2010 Vancouver Olympics.  Currently, he is the Executive Director of the PWHLPA, and by all accounts, has done a great job; however, Burke was a member of the HHOF selection committee, which, despite his credentials, makes this a dubious pick.

Cindy Curley, Player.  This was a surprise to us, as we thought the Hall would look at a more contemporary player, but Curley was an early pioneer who helped the U.S. win Silver in three World Championships (1990, 1992 & 1994) and was their captain from 1989 to 1996.  She was inducted into the United States Hockey Hall of Fame in 2013 and joined the board of U.S. Hockey.

Carey Price, Player. MTL, G. 2007-22. When you win the Hart Trophy, there is a damned good chance you are going to enter the Hockey Hall of Fame.  Playing his entire NHL career with the Montreal Canadiens, Price won the Hart, the Lester B. Pearson Award, the Vezina, and the William M. Jennings Award in 2014-15.  A top-ten Vezina finisher five other times, Price carried Montreal to the 2021 Stanley Cup Finals.  Over his career, Price had a 361-261-79 record and was a six-time All-Star.

Pekka Rinne, Player.  NAS, G, 2005-21. Rinne played his entire career with the Nashville Predators, where he won the 2018 Vezina Trophy and was the runner-up twice.  Rinne was a three-time All-Star and 2021 King Clancy Award winner, and led the Preds to a Stanley Cup Final in 2017, with a 369-213-75 record. Serious question, though.  Would Rinne have been inducted if former Predators General Manager David Poile were not on this committee? We are not sure, but we did project that a European would enter this year.

Keith Tkachuk, Player.  LW, WIN/PHX 1991-2001, STL 2001-2007 & 2007-10, ATL 2007.  Tkachuk might be best known now for his two sons, Matthew and Brady, but the patriarch of the family was a star in his own right.  A member of the 500-Goal Club (538), Tkachuk led the NHL in Goals in 1996-97 (52) and accumulated 1,065 Points in total.  Internationally, Tkachuk was a member of the United States World Cup Team that won Gold in 1996 and the 2002 Olympic Team that won Silver.

We are currently revising our Baseball list, and will then work on our Football, Basketball, and Hockey lists.   Look for those revisions over the summer.

We here at notinhalloffame.com would like to congratulate the members of the Hockey Hall of Fame Class of 2026.

An impressive list of NHL stars will be eligible for the 2025 Hall of Fame class. They will be joined by several players who have been left out of the Hall over the years, including Keith Tkachuk.

Tkachuk was one of the league’s biggest stars and was one of the top forwards of his era. He made a name for himself by combining physical play with elite goal-scoring. As a result, he finished his career with over 538 goals, 1,065 points, and 2,219 penalty minutes.

Despite his impressive numbers, Hall of Fame Voters have left Tkachuk off their ballots since he became eligible over a decade ago.

Will 2025 be the year when this finally changes?

Why Voters Have Not Elected Tkachuk

While voters have not all been open about their opinions around Keith Tkachuk’s Hall of Fame resume, a couple of issues are working against him.

The first is that the former star forward never made it past the third round of the playoffs. While plenty of players have made the Hall without winning a Stanley Cup, Tkachuk’s 18-year career makes the stat stand out when considered for Hockey’s highest honor.

Speaking of Tkachuk’s long career, that is likely another issue that has prevented him from reaching the Hall of Fame. Most of his time was during the NHL’s “dead puck era,” where the league saw an offensive decline from the 1994-95 lockout until the early 2,000s. That led to several players enjoying longer-than-average careers, including Tkachuk.

Lastly, how the game has changed since his retirement could affect how voters view him. While his goal-scoring stands independently, his time spent in the penalty box stands out even more. He could already have gotten into the Hall if he was a defenseman enforcer or a pure scorer. Instead, voters may have difficulty reconciling those two aspects of his game.

While his numbers remain impressive, voters aren’t giving them as much weight when considering his candidacy for the NHL Hall of Fame.

The Argument for Tkachuk to Make the Hall

There are many reasons why Keith Tkachuk should have been inducted into the Hall of Fame long ago.

One of the biggest is that Tkachuk is one of just 47 players to score over 500 goals in his career. Only four eligible players of that group are not in the Hall of Fame. While he benefited from an extended career thanks to the dead puck era, his goal-scoring during the league-wide offensive drought is impressive.

Tkachuk also enjoyed many awards and honors throughout his NHL career. He had ten top-five finishes in All-Star voting, finishing among the top three four times. He also played for the US in the Olympics and the 1996 World Cup.

Along with the awards, the forward also owns some impressive records. The biggest was when he became the first American to lead the NHL in scoring 52 goals in the 1996-1997 season. That impressive season also saw him become the fourth player in NHL history to score 50 goals and 200 penalty minutes in a single season, a feat that seems impossible today.

Will 2025 be Tkachuk’s Year?

Keith Tkachuk’s impressive numbers are worthy of the Hall of Fame, but his path becomes more challenging each year he is left out. Newer voters will have less familiarity with Tkachuk and his role during the NHL’s dead puck era as the years roll on.

That said, the Tkachuk name is still alive and well in the NHL. His sons Brady and Matthew have become stars in their own right, leading the Panthers to the Stanley Cup in 2024. While their play doesn’t affect his Hall of Fame resume, it keeps his name public. Many fans long for his era, when even skill players could be physical enforcers, which is no longer seen in the league.

While many believe that Keith Tkachuk’s impressive numbers warrant a Hall of Fame induction, predicting whether he will be selected can be challenging. As such, sports enthusiasts and analysts often turn to betting sites for insights into potential outcomes. Canada’s best betting sites will likely offer odds on Tkachuk’s chances of making the 2025 Hall of Fame class, reflecting the ongoing debate among voters and fans. Moreover, NHL betting trends might also influence how these odds are set, as the hockey community closely follows the shifting dynamics of the sport.

It seems more than possible that Keith will still be waiting to get in when both of his sons become eligible.

The problem with running a Hall of Fame-related website is that many of the big ones we cover all have announcements within months of each other.  The backbone of what we do is list-related, resulting in a long push to revise what we already have, specifically now with our Football Hockey and Basketball Lists.

At present, we have a minor update as we have completed the first ten of the 2024 Hockey List, which you can comment on and vote on:

The new 1 to 10:

11. Keith Tkachuk
12. Bernie Nicholls
13. Henrik Zetterberg
14. Ryan Getzlaf*
15. Carey Price*
16. P.K. Subban*
17. J.C. Tremblay
18. Ryan Miller
19. Lorne Chabot
20. Dave Taylor 

*Denotes First Year of Eligibility

Rankings are impacted annually based on your comments and votes.

Thank you all for your patience. We will soon unveil more changes to the football and basketball lists.

Regular visitors of Notinhalloffame.com know that we are slowly working on the top 50 of every major team in the NHL, NBA, NFL and MLB.  Once that is done, we intend to look at how each team honor their past players, coaches and executives.  As such, it is important to us that the

St. Louis Blues have announced that Pavol Demetria, Mike Liut and Keith Tkachuk will comprise their second full class.

Pavol Demetria was traded from the Ottawa Senators in 1996 and the Slovak would blossom two years later with an 89-Point season.  Demetria continued to be a point-per-game player with St. Louis, and would win the Lady Byng in the 1999-00 Season and played in three All-Star Games.  He signed with the Los Angeles Kings in 2005 after scoring 493 Points in 494 Games.  Tragically, this is a posthumous induction, as he was one of the players killed in the Lokomotiv Yarozlavl plane crash in 2011.

Mike Liut played his first two seasons of pro hockey with the Cincinnati Stingers of the WHA, and when that league folded, he joined the St. Louis Blues, who owned his NHL rights.  Liut immediately took over as the Blues primary Goalie, and held that for five-and-a-half years before he was traded to Hartford.  Liut’s first three seasons in St. Louis were excellent, peaking in the 1980-81 Season where he was the runner-up for the Hart, and the Lester B. Pearson winner.  He had a 151-139-52 record with a 3.59 GAA for the team.

Traded from the Phoenix Coyotes during the 2000-01 Season, Keith Tkachuk spent the second half of his career (save for 13 Games in Atlanta) with the Blues where he scored 427 Points.  He was an All-Star twice as a Blue.

The Blues Hall of Fame was incorporated last year with a large class that comprised Red Berenson, Scotty Bowman, Berne Federko, Bob Gassoff, Glenn Hall, Brett Hull, Dan Kelly, Al MacInnis, Barclay Plager, Bob Plager, Chris Pronger, the Solomons, Brent Sutter and Garry Unger

The team will honor the three during their home game on January 20 against the Washington Capitals.

We here at Notinhalloffame.com would like to congratulate the impending members of the St. Louis Blues Hall of Fame.