Alexander Mogilny: Hockey Hall of Famer
After 16 years on the ballot, a long deserving candidate gets their due recognition.
It’s an odd sensation to genuinely be surprised.
Not the kind of jump-scare way of being caught off guard when you’re feted for a surprise birthday party, but when something occurs that shocks you in a way you didn’t know was possible.
Upon seeing the announcement from the Hockey Hall of Fame elected Alexander Mogilny to its 2025 class produced such a reaction. An audible gasp shot from my own mouth, the kind where you cover your mouth with your hand while inhaling air so suddenly you could get hiccups if you’re unlucky. There’s a rush of emotion in a way that it nearly brings tears of joy upon reading the news for someone you’ve never met and may never truly get to know that makes you feel a little embarrassed, but the overwhelming happiness at seeing justified recognition for greatness is really something else.
Mogilny retired from the NHL after the 2005-2006 season and became eligible for the Hockey Hall of Fame in 2009. His stats compared to other greats that were already in when he was first on the ballot and to those who were inducted ahead of him in the years that followed weren’t nearly as gaudy. He scored 473 goals in 990 career NHL games and finished with 1,032 points. Being a more than point per-game player for that long of a career would be justification enough for being honored, but that’s only part of Mogilny’s case, of course.
When he was drafted by the Buffalo Sabres in the fifth round of the 1988 NHL Draft (89th overall), it wasn’t a throwaway pick but with the state of the world with the Cold War still raging, although nearing its end, selecting a player out of the Soviet Union was more like calling dibs on someone that may never arrive.
Soviet players never left the Soviet Union, ever. All of the greats that played in the past and all of the brilliant young players that began to emerge in the late 80s were locked away at home to play for teams in their home country and if they were good enough, the Olympic team that made it a ritual to wreck everyone every four years (1960 and 1980 aside, of course).
Mogilny played for CSKA Moscow, the legendary Central Red Army team, alongside fellow youngster, Sergei Fedorov. His teammates included Igor Larionov, Vladimir Krutov, and Sergei Makarov. He was also a member of the 1988 Soviet team that won gold at the Olympic Games in Calgary.
Mogilny was also a member of the 1989 Soviet team that won gold at World Championships in Sweden. Days after the tournament ended, he was smuggled out of Sweden by then Sabres GM Gerry Meehan and director of player personnel Don Luce, evaded Soviet government officials who tracked the young superstar, and flew back to the United States to help him defect and join the Buffalo Sabres.
That very brief summary does not at all convey the danger Mogilny was in for leaving the Red Army Team to play professional hockey in North America. Guys didn’t just leave the Red Army then and considering they were also ranking members of the Soviet military as well, defecting to the U.S. was a big, big, big deal. He was the first player to leave the Soviet Union to join the NHL and with it he helped open the door for others who wanted to get out of the grim and repressive situation in the USSR and into the best hockey league in the world.
The dangers Russian players had to face if they left home for the NHL gets lost because of time and how things have changed, politically speaking. For guys like Mogilny to make a better life for themselves, they had to risk their own to do it — and he was the first. What helped was he was an absolutely brilliant and exciting player.
Speed, agility, smarts and an incredible shot made him special on the ice, but everything he dared to do to get here to show that off to everyone around the league and the rest of the world is what solidified his case as a Hockey Hall of Famer. The butterfly effect of what happens if Mogilny never defected would be fascinating. Alex Ovechkin, now the all-time greatest goal scorer in NHL history grew up a Mogilny fan and it was Mogilny that showed the way for all Russian kids. It’s an incredibly powerful legacy and one he’d surely be demure about, too.
Mogilny being denied by the Hall of Fame voters for 16 years initially felt like a “Well, he’ll get in soon,” kind of thing. But the years rolled on and every time there wasn’t a full class of inductees you’d wonder why Mogilny didn’t get the call. With 18 voters, you need 14 votes to be elected. Crowded fields and certainly levels of politics involved in voting can cause delays, surely, but 16 years? It felt all kinds of wrong, and it led to questions about all kinds of things having to do with all sorts of sticky topics.
There’s an unjust feeling that wells up when year after year you see someone worthy of honor not receive it. After so long, the feeling subsides and it’s more resignation that things will stay that way in perpetuity because of reasons.
Players mean something to fans and Alexander Mogilny had fans everywhere. Buffalo, Vancouver, Toronto, New Jersey… all over North America. His 76-goal season in 1992-1993 (done in 77 games, mind you) helped him grab everyone’s attention. Seasons like that just don’t happen all the time, even in the 80s and early 90s when the game was wide open. Players that do great things and do it with flair and excitement earn appreciation and when they do it for a long time that grows even more.
But when you have all of that and a harrowing story straight out of a movie to accompany it and then a perceived (and perhaps real) slight following their career it just exacerbates everything. The ties that bind from fandom, the respect and admiration for what he went through and then the seeming disrespect from voters to deny him a rightful spot in hockey history all lead to an exhaustion of sorts. People can only get worked up and upset about so many things so often.
Then there’s a shock, a gasp, and a sense of earned relief that a great wrong was righted at long last. Joy. Satisfaction. Pride. That’s what was always there but buried and is all that remains now for that little corner of our memories of hockey’s past.
Congratulations to Alexander, and to everyone elected on Tuesday, no matter how long the wait was, the time was worth the reward.
Nice tribute to one of the most electrifying players I’ve had the pleasure to watch. The Mogilny-LaFontaine era of the Sabres remains one of my best hockey memories, particularly in the gloomy part of Buffalo hockey history we seemed mired in right now.
Younger fans who didn’t grow up amid the Cold War may not truly understand what a big, international deal Mogilny’s defection was. There is a YouTube video with interviews from Gerry Meehan (who, if memory serves, as an immigration lawyer as well) and Don Luce about smuggling #89 out of Sweden after a tournament, with the KGB in full pursuit. Real cloak-and-dagger, John LeCarre type stuff.
I worked with a guy in the early 90s who had somehow befriended Mogilny and he and his wife became sort of surrogate family to him. I met Mogilny at the coworker’s party once, and Mogilny talked about keeping a lit cigarette stuck between the glass at Sabreland so he could take drags on it during practice drills. (Ah,the 90s!) To think someone could play like Mogilny all while indulging in incipient COPD boggles the mind!
I also recall he had a famous fear of flying particularly early in his career and was known to have taken cars on a couple of road trips. Jeff Marek noted on his show yesterday that Mogilny refused to fly to North America to receive his Selke Trophy: Marek chalked it up to Mogilny thinking the Selke wasn’t worth it but perhaps it was that old aerophobia (or AeroFlotphobia in the case of a Russian?) acting up. If that is indeed the reason for his 16 year snub, as some have suggested, that just sucks. But better late than never!