Breaking: Beloved Red Wing Elected to Hockey Hall of Fame
A two-time Stanley Cup champion with the Detroit Red Wings, Pavel Datsyuk has just been announced a member of the 2024 Hockey Hall of Fame Class in his first year on the ballot
Two-time Stanley Cup Champion, three-time Selke Trophy Winner, four-time Lady Bing Award winner, and idol and muse to the NHL's YouTube generation Pavel Datsyuk has been elected to the Hockey Hall of Fame as part of the class of 2024. And lest we forget, it's the Hockey Hall of Fame, not the NHL Hall of Fame, and Datsyuk also has gold medals from the Olympics and World Championships to his name.
The Hall's class of 2024 includes three men's players (Datsyuk, Jeremy Roenick, Shea Weber), two women's players (Natalie Darwitz and Krissy Wendell-Pohl), and two builders (Colin Campbell and David Poile).
Datsyuk's counting stats aren't exceptional by Hall of Fame standards (918 points in 953 games), but he had the universal respect of his peers—regarded for the vast majority if not entirety of his 14 NHL seasons as belonging among the league's elite.
Having grown up among those whose indoctrination into hockey fandom included YouTube, Datsyuk was a marvel—singular in his sleight of hand and audacity yet as tenacious along the boards to win puck battles as he was slick in scoring shootout goals.
[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVHZWbSfWb8[/embed]
As I get older, I appreciate the way Datsyuk's career is a marvel by both advanced stats and the eye test. He boasts the league's undisputed championship belt when it comes to a highlight mixtape, but it also not hyperbolic to say that he is arguably the best player of the advanced stats era, despite that era beginning when he was 29—past his prime according to those stats and already with five seasons under his belt.
There is also geopolitical significance to Datsyuk's election. He is the first Russian-born player to be elected to the Hall since the country's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. This, of course, has very little to do with Datsyuk himself, but there was some thought that Russian players should not be recognized in the (immediate) aftermath of the invasion. Russia has not been welcome at IIHF events since the invasion.
In my estimation, while it would be inappropriate for Russia to participate as a team (whether under some phony name or its official colors) in international athletics in this moment, an individual honor should not be denied on the basis of their nation's aggression, as the Russian people are themselves victims of the Putin regime. In this regard, Datsyuk's election looks to me like the committee making the right choice in a clearly fraught circumstance.