Hockey Hall of Fame: Class of 2009 / Five of best bound for immortality

Enlarge Image

Steve Yzerman hoists Stanley Cup his Red Wings won after beating Washington Capitals in Game 4 of championship in 1998. (PAUL CHIASSON / THE CANADIAN PRESS ARCHIVES)

Enlarge Image

'It is hard to put into words what this means to me, especially since I'm joining my father in the Hockey Hall of Fame' -- Brett Hull (CANWEST NEWS SERVICE)

Enlarge Image

L.A. Kings’ Luc Robitaille potted 63 goals in team’s 1992-93 season. (KEVORK DJANSEZIAN / THE ASSOCIATED PRESS ARCHIVES)

Enlarge Image

Devils’ GM Lou Lamoriello guided club to three Stanley Cups. (MEL EVANS / THE ASSOCIATED PRESS ARCHIVES)

Enlarge Image

Brian Leetch: In Rangers’ ’94 Stanley Cup season, he won MVP trophy. (THE CANADIAN PRESS ARCHIVES)

There can be no debate about the merits of the Hockey Hall of Fame's class of 2009.

Steve Yzerman, Brett Hull, Luc Robitaille and Brian Leetch were named to the Hall as players Tuesday and longtime New Jersey Devils general manager Lou Lamoriello was accepted in the builder category.

The credentials of some inductees have been questioned in recent years, but this is an all-star group comparable to the best ever. And it comes only two years after the memorable 2007 induction of greats Mark Messier, Ron Francis, Scott Stevens and Al MacInnis.

"This is a tremendous class of players," Yzerman said. "It's a thrill to go in with this group."

A maximum of four players can go into the Hall each year, and first-year eligible players not chosen by the 18-member selection committee include Alexander Mogilny, who had 1,032 points in 990 career NHL games, and Dave Andreychuk, who scored 640 goals over 23 seasons.

Still waiting from past years are stars like Doug Gilmour, Pavel Bure, Dino Ciccarelli and Phil Housley.

Players must be retired for three years to enter the Hall of Fame unless they receive a special exemption. The official induction ceremony will be held Nov. 9 in Toronto.

This year's group includes three players from the Detroit Red Wings' 2002 Stanley Cup team -- Yzerman, Robitaille and Hull.

And two players on the U.S. team that upset Canada in the 1996 World Cup final -- Hull and Leetch -- and that squad's general manager, Lamoriello.

All four players were offensive engines for their teams, who entered the NHL in the early to mid-1980s in an era of firewagon hockey, survived the clutch-and-grab years of the late 1990s and early 2000s and stayed on one year after the lockout that wiped out the 2004-05 season.

Yzerman has since moved into management with the Red Wings, his only team for 22 NHL seasons. The Ottawa native is also Team Canada's executive director for the 2010 Olympics.

Yzerman is the sixth-leading scorer in NHL history, with 1,755 points in 1,514 games. The longtime Red Wings captain led the team to three Stanley Cups and was a member of Canada's gold-medal-winning Olympic team in 2002.

Later that same season came a third Stanley Cup, although he played on a bad knee that he called the beginning of the end of his career.

Yzerman also won the Pearson Trophy as the league's best player, as voted by his fellow players in 1989, and captured the Selke Trophy as the NHL's top defensive forward in 2000.

Hull was one of the great pure goal-scorers of his era.

He scored 86 goals and was named the league's most valuable player in 1991. He ended his career with 741 goals and 1,391 points in 1,269 games. He and 1960s great Bobby Hull are the only father-son combination with 600 goals and 1,000 career NHL points each.

"It is hard to put into words what this means to me, especially since I'm joining my father in the Hockey Hall of Fame," Hull said in a statement.

Yzerman said that while Hull was known for scoring, he also worked hard on his defensive game and on penalty killing and that "it was important for him that he be an all-around player."

Robitaille won the Calder Trophy as the NHL's top rookie in 1987 and went on to amass 1,394 points in 1,431 games, which ranks 10th among all-time scorers. The Montreal native had eight 40-goal seasons and scored 63 goals in 1992-93 with the Los Angeles Kings.

As a junior with the Hull Olympiques, scouts shunned Robitaille because they felt he was slow and he wasn't drafted until the ninth round. But he had an uncanny nose for the net and was instant star with the Kings, playing on a line with Hall of Fame centre Marcel Dionne.

Leetch was one of the top defencemen of his era with 1,028 points in 1,205 games. He won a Calder Trophy in 1988 and became the first U.S.-born player to win the Conn Smythe Trophy as most valuable player in the playoffs after leading the New York Rangers to the Stanley Cup in 1994, ending a 54-year Cup drought for the Blueshirts.

The Devils have won three Stanley Cups under Lamoriello, who has been involved in the game for more than 40 years at both the college and pro levels.

-- The Canadian Press

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition June 24, 2009 C3