It seemed fitting that the year after Al Arbour got inducted, that the Head Coach of the next great dynasty would get in.  

One of the best two way players of all time, Bryan Trottier did not always get his due; despite winning six Stanley Cups as a player.  Trottier was an offensively gifted playmaker who once won the Art Ross Trophy (he won the Hart the same year) was also a keen defensive strategist and became known throughout the National Hockey League as one of the most complete players in the game.  

Borje Salming not only was the first Swedish player to enter the Hockey Hall of Fame, but was the man who paved the way for Swedish players to enter the National Hockey League and prove that the Scandinavian nation belonged on the world stage.   Salming would join the Toronto Maple Leafs in 1973 and he immediately made an impact on their blue line.  The Swedish Defenceman would be named to six post season All Star teams, but most importantly he shattered the myth that players from Sweden could be tough enough to hang in the elite professional league.  Every player in Sweden who looks across the Atlantic Ocean with dreams of the National Hockey League owes a debt to Borje Salming.

Despite his relatively short NHL career, we like the Veteran’s Committee induction of Bobby Bauer.  He only had seven complete seasons in the National Hockey League, but his prime was taken away from his as he participated in World War II.  He spent his professional career with the Boston Bruins, and was a member of the famed “Kraut Line” with Woody Dumart & Milt Schmidt (both of them Hall of Fame inductees) and was part of two Stanley Cups for the Bruins in 1939.  Four times, (and again remember out of seven seasons) Bauer was named the Second Team All Star at Right Wing, and three times his class was shown as the Lady Byng Trophy winner.  This is one Veteran’s Category inductee that we approve of completely.