ALFREDSSON DESERVES PLACE IN HALL OF FAME
Since retiring, Daniel Alfredsson has experienced a run of salutations.
He now has the key to the city, membership in the Ottawa Sports Hall of Fame and an honorary Doctor of Laws from Carleton University among his credentials.
On Thursday, Alfredsson will watch his No. 11 Ottawa Senators jersey be raised to the rafters at the Canadian Tire Centre before a game between the Senators and Red Wings. The ceremony starts at 6:30 p.m. Puck drop is 8:08 p.m.
After the jersey retirement, there won’t be much left by way of honours, except the big one: Entry into the Hockey Hall of Fame.
While Alfredsson doesn’t have the slam-dunk numbers of Teemu Selanne, also eligible for Hall consideration next year, the elegant Swede has amassed a compelling argument over an 18-year NHL career, 17 of them in Ottawa where he served as captain for 13 seasons. He finished his final NHL season as a member of the Detroit Red Wings in 2013-14 before signing a one-day contract with Ottawa to officially end his career as a member of the Senators.
A glimpse at Alfredsson’s case:
BY THE NUMBERS
In 1,246 NHL games, Alfredsson was close to a point-per-game player with 444 goals and 713 assists for 1,157 points. Alfredsson had two 40-goal seasons (43, 40), one 100-point season (103 in 2005-06) and 13 times he scored 20 or more goals in a season. He added 100 playoff points (51 goals) in 124 post-season games.
OTTAWA LEGACY
Though the Senators did not win a Stanley Cup during the Alfredsson era, they were a consistent threat and reached the Cup final in 2007. Alfredsson scored the winning goal in overtime in the Eastern Conference final to eliminate Buffalo.
Alfredsson is the first legacy player in the modern history of the hockey club and is the franchise leader in goals, assists and points, among many other categories.
AWARDS
After the 1995-96 season, Alfredsson became the first Senators player to win a major award, the Calder Trophy, as outstanding NHL rookie.
Alfie later won two NHL leadership citations, the King Clancy Award for humanitarian work and the Mark Messier Leadership Award. He played in six NHL all-star games.
The HHOF is far from an NHL only residence. International accomplishments matter. There are players who have been inducted without playing a single game in the NHL (eg. Vladislav Tretiak).
Alfredsson has plenty of international bona fides, including five Olympic Games hockey tournaments with Sweden, beginning with the 1998 Nagano Games and ending with Sochi in 2014.
At the 2006 Olympics in Turin where Sweden won gold, Alfredsson was the nation’s top forward on a team boasting two future Hall of Fame forwards in Peter Forsberg and Mats Sundin. With five goals and five assists in eight games, Alfredsson led all Swedes in goals and points.
Alfredsson was also part of two silver and two bronze performances at the World Hockey Championship and participated in seven worlds in all. He was on Sweden’s bronze-winning team at the 1996 World Cup of Hockey.
“He’s been a leader and one of the best players on teams that won,” Senators captain and Swedish compatriot Erik Karlsson says. “Five Olympic Games — I don’t know many players who have done that.”
INTANGIBLES
Alfredsson will forever have this cool NHL footnote: first player to score a shootout goal after the concept was adopted for the 2005-06 season.
Alfredsson beat Ed Belfour of the Toronto Maple Leafs on Oct. 5, 2005, the season opener in Toronto.
The feat is noted in the Guinness World Records.
The meek shall inherit the earth: Alfredsson was drafted by Ottawa in the sixth round, 133rd overall, in the 1994 NHL entry draft.
Alfredsson had barely heard of the draft, didn’t know what it meant to be picked and figured he would play for a year or two in Canada to try it out, then return to his native Sweden.
He went on to score more points than every other player selected in 1994.
NOD FROM KING KARL
Karlsson, a two-time Norris Trophy winner, doesn’t have any doubt Alfie belongs in the Hall of Fame.
“He’s proven that in everything he’s done for hockey, for this whole organization, and the community,” Karlsson says.
The Hall has a place for players who bring honour to the game on and off the ice. With his courageous work in Ottawa for the cause of mental health, Alfredsson has helped erase a stigma that always existed around mental illness.
Says Karlsson: “Everything he’s been through is Hall of Fame worthy.”