June 14, 2010
Up and Coming
Developing the Inductinator

by Iain Fyffe

Does the Hockey Hall of Fame have any standards for the players it inducts? It has some standards of qualification, of course; a player must have been retired for three seasons before he can be considered, and must of course receive enough votes to earn induction. But that's not what I'm talking about. The interesting question is whether the voters have any implicit standards on who deserves to be enshrined and who does not. That is, can we determine why Glenn Anderson and Clark Gillies and been given the honor, while Dino Ciccarelli and Dale Hunter have not?

Clearly, there is no true checklist that the voters use to determine enshrinement. Any standards that might exist are unwritten and informal, and likely not universally applied. But still, it should be interesting and worthwhile to develop a system, based on the implicit standards of recent inductees, that can be used to predict whether a particular player will be inducted into the Hall of Fame, and determine which other players meet the standards but have not been honored for whatever reason.

It is to this end that I will develop the Inductinator, which will be designed to predict the likelihood that a given player will be inducted into the Hall of Fame. Note that this does not necessarily mean we will be looking for the players most deserving of the honor; it is not intended that the Inductinator be a player valuation system. If the Hall of Fame voters have noticeable biases, there biases will be built into the system. No judgment will be made as to whether the implicit standards are fair or appropriate. We're looking at who will be inducted, not necessarily who should be inducted. This will involve examining a variety of factors to determine whether they seem to have an effect on the Hall of Fame voting. Examples of these factors include the players's statistical records, postseason awards, and Stanley Cup championships.

To begin with, we can look at recent inductees to see if we can find any patterns, or anything to watch out for while developing the Inductinator. Only modern players need be considered, not because 'old-timer' players are less deserving of consideration, but because their statistical records and the circumstances in which they played are so different as to make comparisons difficult. Also, the most interesting use of this system will be predicting Hall of Fame induction for current players, who are obviously all modern players themselves. As such, we'll only be looking at players whose careers are substantially all in the 'modern era', meaning 1967-68 and later.

When looking for implicit standards, the true superstar players are of relatively little use. Wayen Gretzky and Ray Bourque, for instance, would be so far beyond the minimum standards that they cannot be used to determine where these minimums are. We can't completely ignore them, of course, but generally more instructive are the players at the lower end of the spectrum; those that just meet the minimum standards, allowing us to see where the lines might be drawn. With that in mind, let's begin examining recent inductees to see what we can see.

In 2009, the inductees were Brett Hull, Brian Leetch, Luc Robitaille and Steve Yzerman. These players don't tell us much at first glance, since they were all superstars regarded as being amongst the best of their time. They are all obvious Hall of Famers, and as such don't help us see where the minimum lies.

Part of 2008's Hall of Fame class, Glenn Anderson, is much more interesting. The other half of this class, Igor Larionov, is of limited use since he was among the last of his kind- European superstars who played the primes of their careers in Europe. The best modern European players play their best years in the NHL, which makes Larionov and others like him (2001 inductee Viacheslav Fetisov) poor comparisons. But in Glenn Anderson we have an interesting case.

Before his induction, it was far from clear that Anderson would be enshrined. He was never truly the best at his position, even in his greatest years. He did put up some big numbers though, at least by today's standards. This indicates the possibility that the Hall of Fame voters are impressed by big scoring numbers, but might not consider the context in which these numbers were compiled. On the other hand, Anderson was an important player for six teams that won Stanley Cup championships. Perhaps that instead is the reason for his induction; by himself he is not enough to determine which of these reasons is more important, or indeed the determining factor.

There are other examples that might support either factor as being important. Bernie Federko, inducted in 2002, has some impressive scoring figures, but was never the best at his position. Clark Gillies, also inducted in 2002, could be an example of Cup wins being a determining factor. He was an important player for the Islanders dynasty, but certainly not the most important. On the other hand, Gillies did make the First All-Star team twice, so it's not clear that the Cups are his primary claim to Fame. Perhaps Bob Gainey would be a closer comparison; but then he has four Selke awards on his resume, once again clouding the issue. This does illustrate that no two players are really the same, and so we must deal with aggregates and averages.

Cam Neely (inducted in 2005) and Mike Gartner (2001) provide another interesting contrast. Neely's career was relatively short, only 726 NHL games due to injuries, but for a short time he was among the absolute elite of goal-scorers in the league. He's an example of a very high, but short, peak. Gartner, on the other hand, was never the greatest goal-scoring threat in the NHL; in his best season he was fifth in goals, and had several other seasons where he barely made the top ten. He wasn't in the very top class of players, but he was just below that, and remained there for a significant number of years. His peak was not nearly as high as Neely's, but it lasted far longer. It seems that both types of players can be deemed worthy for the Hall; it will be interesting to see if one type or the other has an advantage. High-peak players probably receive more attention, for instance Pat LaFontaine (inducted in 2003). And then we have Dino Ciccarelli, the NHL's only 600-goal non-Hall-of-Famer*, as a very good comparison to Gartner. We'll probably come back to Ciccarelli quite a bit while developing the Inductinator, likely as one of the most-qualified players who has never been honored.

(Note: There are other players with 600 goals who are not in the Hall of Fame, of course. Brendan Shanahan, Jaromir Jagr, Joe Sakic and Teemu Selanne are not yet eligible, and are very likely to be inducted when their time comes. Dave Andreychuk is also on the list, but was only first eligible last year. If he's not inducted in the next few years, he'll join Ciccarelli in a very exclusive category.)

The next step in the development will be to begin examining specific factors to isolate which ones are important in the Hall of Fame voting. From there, we put them together into a predictor. Hopefully the journey will be as enjoyable as it will be instructive.

For completeness, here is the list of Hall of Famers which I consider 'modern' for these purposes. Note that the players do not have to have played their entire careers after 1967. However, if they did play before that year, their pre-1967 career must be unimportant to the overall evaluation of their career.

Player	        Year	Player	           Year	   Player	     Year
Brett Hull	2009    Viacheslav Fetisov 2001	   Denis Potvin	     1991
Brian Leetch	2009	Mike Gartner	   2001	   Bill Barber	     1990
Luc Robitaille	2009	Dale Hawerchuk	   2001	   Gil Perreault     1990
Steve Yzerman	2009	Jari Kurri	   2001	   Darryl Sittler    1989
Glenn Anderson	2008	Joe Mullen	   2000	   Tony Esposito     1988
Igor Larionov	2008	Denis Savard	   2000	   Guy Lafleur	     1988
Ron Francis	2007	Wayne Gretzky	   1999	   Brad Park	     1988
Al MacInnis	2007	Michel Goulet	   1998	   Bobby Clarke	     1987
Mark Messier	2007	Peter Stastny	   1998	   Ed Giacomin	     1987
Scott Stevens	2007	Mario Lemieux	   1997	   Serge Savard	     1986
Patrick Roy	2006	Bryan Trottier	   1997	   Gerry Cheevers    1985
Cam Neely	2005	Borje Salming	   1996	   Jean Ratells	     1985
Ray Bourque	2004	Larry Robinson	   1995	   Phil Esposito     1984
Paul Coffey	2004	Guy Lapointe	   1993	   Jacques Lemaire   1984
Larry Murphy	2004	Steve Shutt	   1993	   Bernie Parent     1984
Grant Fuhr	2003	Billy Smith	   1993	   Ken Dryden	     1983
Pat LaFontaine	2003	Marcel Dionne	   1992	   Yvan Cournoyer    1982
Bernie Federko	2002	Bob Gainey	   1992	   Bobby Orr	     1979
Clark Gillies	2002	Lanny McDonald	   1992	   
Rod Langway	2002	Mike Bossy	   1991