The Finnish Flash is a lock.
Teemu Selanne will surely be elected to the Hockey Hall of Fame on Monday in his first year of eligibility.
Selanne, now 46, began his career in a way no other rookie did, leading the NHL with an exhilarating 76-goal season in 1992-93 with the Winnipeg Jets. He carried that natural scoring touch throughout his 21-season career, finishing 11th all-time with 684 goals and 773 assists for 1,457 points in 1,451 games. He retired after the 2013-14 season with Anaheim.
The bigger question is who will join Selanne in hockey’s hallowed Hall in November?
Daniel Alfredsson is another first-ballot contender. The one thing the Sens’ all-time leader in games played, goals (444), assists (713) and points (1,157) has working against him is that he finished among the top two right wingers in end-of-season All-Star voting just once (2005-06) in his career.
Other candidates have waited a considerable length of time for a call to the Hall: Mark Recchi (four years), Dave Andreychuk (nine years), Alexander Mogilny (nine years) and goaltenders Chris Osgood (four years) and Curtis Joseph (five years).
One player who may deserve a second look is Selanne’s former teammate Paul Kariya, who has already been passed over four times by the selection committee.
Kariya, now 42, was forced to retire in 2010 at the age of 35 after multiple concussions. He finished with 989 points in 989 games played.
Kariya was one of the most dynamic players of his era, finishing in the top seven in NHL scoring four different times. So far, 57 players in NHL history have been named a first team All-Star at least three times – and 56 of those players are in the Hall of Fame already, or are active players who are considered locks (like Jaromir Jagr, Erik Karlsson, Jarome Iginla and Patrick Kane). Kariya is the only one of the 57 players not in the Hall of Fame.
Kariya was the 1997 Hart Trophy runner-up and had a flair for the dramatic, scoring the magical game-tying goal in the 2002 Olympic gold-medal game against the United States, eventually ending up with a gold medal.
Like all candidates, Kariya requires a minimum of 14 of the 18 votes (77 per cent) to forever be enshrined. The official induction list will be made public at 3 p.m. ET.
Here is a list of potential candidates for the 2017 class in the Hockey Hall of Fame: