Alexander Mogilny's long wait ends as ex-Sabres great is finally elected to Hockey Hall of Fame
Mogilny's 16-year wait has been widely considered the biggest snub of players not in the Hall in recent years. Fourteen votes from the 18-member selection committee are required for induction and Mogilny had consistently fallen short of that mark.
The wait is finally over for Alexander Mogilny.
The architect of the greatest goal-scoring season in Buffalo Sabres history was named to the Class of 2025 for the Hockey Hall of Fame on Tuesday, ending a confounding wait for induction that had stretched since 2009.
“I am happy to be part of a great organization like the Hockey Hall of Fame,” Mogilny said in a statement. “I want to thank both my Russian and NHL teammates for helping me achieve this honor.”
Mogilny, the right winger who joined center Pat LaFontaine in a 1-2 combination for all-time by scoring 76 goals for the 1992-93 Sabres, will be inducted Nov. 10 in Toronto. He is part of an eight-member class that includes former NHL players Zdeno Chara, Duncan Keith and Joe Thornton, and Canadian women’s star Jennifer Botterill, the sister of former Sabres general manager Jason Botterill. The unveiling of the Hall inductees was the first big announcement of the week leading into the NHL draft that opens Friday night.
Mogilny’s 16-year wait has been widely considered the biggest snub of players not in the Hall in recent years. Fourteen votes from the 18-member selection committee are required for induction and Mogilny has consistently fallen short of that mark. In some years, in fact, it’s believed he hasn’t even been nominated as a finalist in the balloting, which remains secret and is never revealed to the public.
Former Sabres winger Alexander Mogilny scored a franchise-record 76 goals in the 1992-93 season. Buffalo News file photo
Mogilny, 56, has all the attributes you would think would make for an easy Hall member. He is one of 30 members of what’s known as hockey’s “Triple Gold” club, emblematic of winning Olympic gold, World Championships gold and the Stanley Cup. Mogilny scored 473 regular-season goals in the NHL and eclipsed 500 when you count his playoff totals. He won his Stanley Cup in 2000 with the New Jersey Devils.
And he has major off-ice significance on the international hockey scene, as he was the first major Russian player to defect to the West. It happened in 1989 at the World Championships in Stockholm, where Sabres GM Gerry Meehan and assistant Don Luce undertook a dangerous, clandestine operation to get Mogilny away from his Soviet team and on to a plane bound for New York.
Mogilny was given No. 89 by Sabres management in recognition of both the year he arrived in the United States and his slot in the draft (fifth round, 89th overall). He subsequently wore No. 89 for his entire NHL career.
The hangup to Mogilny’s selection has been the long-rumored belief he’s not interested in attending the induction weekend and the selection committee was thus not interested in dealing with such a snub. In recent years, of course, Mogilny’s candidacy likely was also hung up in backlash against Russians in the wake of the invasion of Ukraine.
Mogilny becomes the 14th former Sabres player to earn induction in the Hall, joining a list that includes LaFontaine, Tom Barrasso, Pierre Turgeon, Dave Andreychuk, Tim Horton, Gilbert Perreault, Dale Hawerchuk, Clark Gillies, Grant Fuhr, Dick Duff, Doug Gilmour, Dominik Hasek and Phil Housley.
Mogilny was inducted into the Sabres Hall of Fame in 2011 along with longtime hockey reporter Jim Kelley of The Buffalo News, and attended the ceremony in KeyBank Center but did not speak to any members of the media. Mogilny did not attend his induction to the Greater Buffalo Sports Hall of Fame in 2016 and did not respond to requests from the Hall’s board.
Early days with Sabres
Mogilny joined the Sabres for the 1989-90 season and scored a goal just 20 seconds into his first NHL game, a 4-3 win over the Quebec Nordiques in Memorial Auditorium on Oct. 5, 1989.Incredibly, that season opener showcased seven future Hall of Famers on the ice and goals by five of them (Mogilny and Andreychuk for Buffalo and the Quebec trio of Guy LaFleur, Michel Goulet and Joe Sakic). Not scoring that night were Turgeon and Quebec’s Peter Stastny. Mogilny started his Buffalo career living with Luce and Luce’s wife, Diane, and his early Sabres career was rocky at times. He claimed to have developed a fear of flying and either didn’t attend some road games or had to be driven to them, but there were constant rumors that was a really a cover for his desire to be traded to the New York Rangers.
After scoring 15 goals as a rookie, Mogilny began to get more comfortable in Buffalo. He blossomed with 30 goals in 1990-91 and put together a 39-goal, 84-point season in 1991-92.
On Dec. 21, 1991, in a game at Toronto’s Maple Leaf Gardens, Mogilny scored five seconds into the game to tie the NHL record for the fastest goal scored from an opening faceoff, set by Winnipeg’s Doug Smail in 1981 and New York Islanders captain Bryan Trottier in 1984. No one has done that since Mogilny.
Alexander the Great
The Sabres acquired LaFontaine from the New York Islanders early in the 1991-92 season and they became linemates for all-time during the ’92-93 campaign, when Mogilny finished with 76 goals and 127 points while LaFontaine had 53 goals and 95 assists for 148 points. Mogilny’s goal total and LaFontaine’s assist and point figures remain Buffalo franchise records.Mogilny and Winnipeg rookie Teemu Selanne each scored 76 goals that season, a feat that’s been reached seven times in NHL history – but by no one since 1993.
The Sabres won a playoff series for the first time in 10 years when they swept the Boston Bruins, but were swept in the second round by eventual Stanley Cup champion Montreal as both Mogilny and LaFontaine were knocked out by injuries and Buffalo lost three of the four games in overtime. Mogilny broke his leg in Game 3, missed the rest of the series and was never really the same in Buffalo after that.
Mogilny slumped to 32 and 19 goals, respectively, the next two seasons, with the latter figure coming in the labor-shortened 1994-95 season. He was traded by the Sabres to Vancouver on July 8, 1995, in a deal that brought back future captain Michael Peca, defenseman Mike Wilson and a first-round draft pick that became stellar Buffalo blueliner Jay McKee.
Post-Buffalo days
Mogilny had 55 goals for Vancouver in the 1995-96 season, finishing third in the NHL in goals, but the Canucks were first-round losers to eventual champion Colorado. Mogilny played five years in Vancouver before moving to New Jersey, where his two seasons were highlighted by a Stanley Cup victory in 2000 over Dallas and a 43-goal campaign in 2000-01. That ended with the Devils losing Game 7 of the final to Colorado.Mogilny played the next three seasons in Toronto, scoring 33 goals in 2003-04, and finished his career back in New Jersey, with 12 goals in 34 games in 2005-06. A chronic hip problem saw him end his career that spring after agreeing to play for Albany in the AHL.
Since his retirement, Mogilny has lived in Russia and has been in management in the KHL. He has been president of his hometown team, Amur Khabarovsk, since 2015.
Mogilny is the first Russian to be an NHL captain (with the Sabres in 1993-94), the first named to an NHL All-Star team, and holds the highest single-season goal total and second-highest single-season point total for a Russian player in league history.