How The Hockey Hall Of Fame Class Of 2026 Fared Against the Senators

The Hockey Hall of Fame will welcome the class of 2026 on Monday night in Toronto, and just for fun, we thought it might be interesting to see how the four NHL player inductees fared against the Senators over the years.

Not surprisingly, they did very well. They’re Hall of Famers after all. 

Patrice Bergeron, Carey Price, Keith Tkachuk and Pekka Rinne combined for more than 4,800 NHL games, generally making life miserable for all opponents.

Bergeron and Price spent their entire careers in the same division as the Senators, making them very familiar to Ottawa hockey fans, while Tkachuk touches a nerve in this town for a very different reason.

Here's a look at their accomplishments and how they did against the Sens.

Few players were more consistently difficult for the Senators to play against than Patrice Bergeron.

The longtime Bruins centre played 19 NHL seasons, collecting 427 goals and 1,040 points in 1,294 games. He won the Stanley Cup in 2011, two Olympic gold medals with Canada and a record six Selke Trophies as the NHL's best defensive forward.

Bergeron was also extremely productive against the Senators.

In 80 career regular-season games against the Sens, Bergeron recorded 29 goals and 40 assists for 69 points.

His combination of offensive production, defensive awareness and faceoff dominance made him one of the NHL's premier two-way forwards.

The Senators did get the better of Bergeron and the Bruins in their 2017 first-round playoff series, winning in six games on their way to the Eastern Conference Final. Clarke MacArthur’s OT goal to eliminate Boston that year won’t soon be forgotten in Ottawa.

Like Bergeron, Carey Price spent his entire NHL career playing for one of the Senators' divisional rivals.

Price appeared in 712 regular-season games over 15 seasons with Montreal, recording 361 victories, 49 shutouts, a 2.51 goals-against average and a .917 save percentage.

His finest season came in 2014-15, when he captured the Hart Trophy, Vezina Trophy, Ted Lindsay Award and William M. Jennings Trophy.

Pretty, pretty, pretty good.

He also won Olympic gold with Canada in 2014 and led Montreal to the Stanley Cup Final in 2021.

Against the Senators, Price had an excellent record of 28-13-7 with a .917 save percentage and a 2.39 goals against average. 

The Senators faced Price and the Canadiens in two memorable playoff series.

In 2013, the Senators eliminated Montreal in five games in the opening round. Two years later, shortly after the Hamburglar run ended, Price and the Canadiens returned the favour, eliminating the Sens in six.

Price finished his career as Montreal's all-time leader in goaltending victories, and as every hockey fan knows, there have been more than a few greats who’ve come through that locker room.

Keith Tkachuk's induction carries an obvious Senators connection.

The father of former Senators captain Brady Tkachuk enjoyed an outstanding 18-season NHL career, scoring 538 goals and adding 527 assists for 1,065 points in 1,201 games.

Known for his combination of physical play and scoring ability, Tkachuk surpassed the 50-goal mark twice and led the NHL with 52 goals in 1996-97, becoming the first American-born player to lead the league in goals.

He was also a member of the United States team that defeated Canada to win the 1996 World Cup of Hockey.

Tkachuk spent most of his career in the Western Conference, meaning his opportunities to face the Senators were considerably more limited than those of Bergeron and Price. He had 21 points in 24 games against the Sens and just 16 penalty minutes.

Although he never won a Cup, Tkachuk finished his career among the highest-scoring American-born players in NHL history.

Pekka Rinne was one of the NHL's most dependable goaltenders during his long career with Nashville. His No. 35 became the first jersey retired by the Predators.

Originally selected in the eighth round of the 2004 NHL Draft, Rinne went on to play 683 regular-season games, posting 369 victories, 60 shutouts, a 2.43 goals-against average and a .917 save percentage. He won the Vezina Trophy in 2018 and helped Nashville reach its first Stanley Cup Final in 2017.

Like Tkachuk, Rinne spent his career in the Western Conference, limiting his appearances against the Senators compared with the two Atlantic/Northeast lifers.

He did play 11 games against the Sens, going 8-3-0 in his career. His goals against average in those games was 2.73 and his save percentage checked in at .908.

He never faced the Senators in a playoff series, but if Chris Kunitz hadn't scored for Pittsburgh in double overtime in 2017, he would have been waiting for the Sens in the Stanley Cup Final.

The four NHL players will officially enter the Hockey Hall of Fame on Monday night, joining women's hockey pioneer Cindy Curley and longtime NHL executive Brian Burke who enters as a builder.

Burke's strongest link to the Senators is a painful one. He was GM of that Anaheim Ducks team that beat the Sens in the 2007 Stanley Cup Final.

Curley has an Ottawa tie as well, captaining Team USA in the first official Women's World Hockey Championship in 1990 at the Ottawa Civic Centre. The Americans lost to Canada in the final, but Curley put on a show with an outrageous 23 points in five games in the tournament.

By Steve Warne
The Hockey News Ottawa