Alexander Mogilny Deserves Hockey Hall Of Fame Enshrinement

They dress up in expensive tuxes and suits. Far from the accustomed uniforms we see them wear on the ice. They look like people instead of the warriors we so often see. In general, some members are locks, while others are surprises. Their faces are etched in glass plaques that line the walls of the Esso Great Hall. Remembering the greats that played the game and the memories that are etched in our minds forever.

I often wonder what is the most important criteria for getting the votes to get into the Hockey Hall of Fame. The number of Stanley Cup rings one possesses? Is it the number of gold medals one has achieved? The number of scoring titles one has? These are all valid achievements and are certainly noteworthy. However, what if we look past them to something deeper and more life-changing. What if that one life-changing decision changed not only that one person’s life, but also many lives to follow.

To understand this particular endeavor, you have to go back to 1989, in the Soviet Union. A powerhouse in the hockey world, Alexander Mogilny was a part of that dynasty. At 20 years old, Mogilny was very much part of the USSR’s hockey future. However, Mogilny had a different plan.

You see, the Buffalo Sabres took a risk and drafted Mogilny in the 1988 NHL Entry Draft with the 89th overall pick. Drafting Mogilny that high was considered a risk due to Cold War tensions and uncertainty he’d ever take the ice in the United State.

“He would hit and take a hit and go do things that at the time European players were supposedly not willing to do. I came back and I told my general manager that if we had a chance this upcoming draft, we should draft Alex,” said Don Luce, then head of player development for the Sabres, in the book Breakaway. “At the time no one was taking them high because we didn’t know if they were coming out or not. And no Russian had ever come out. The talent was so great that it was worth the risk.”

During the 1989 World Ice Hockey Championships, Mogilny made one of the toughest decisions of his life. At 20, he defected from the Soviet Union to the United States with the help of the Buffalo Sabres.

Since no Russian player had ever defected before and certainly not one of Mogilny’s caliber, the Sabres were in foreign territory. The Soviets made a habit of releasing players to the NHL when they were past their prime. The Sabres knew they could not waltz into Russia and take Mogilny away. How they did it was straight out of a spy movie, involving a meeting, a phone call, and a lot of runnings.

First, the Sabres drafted him. That was the easy part. Second, came a meeting in Anchorage, Alaska, site of the 1988 World Junior Championship, just to slip Mogilny a business card. Then came a phone call, with a code sentence to prove Mogilny was on the other end. Just like that, he was ready to defect. The Sabres sent Don Luce and Gerry Meehan to Sweden to go get him. They met Mogilny and his liaison, Sergei Formachev, at of all places a shopping mall. As Meehan and Luce pilled up to the side entrance, Mogilny and Formachev darted out with agents right on their tails. However, the journey was not over yet. The group had to bounce around from hotel to hotel, eluding the Russians until Mogilny was granted parole for humanitarian reasons.

“He’s very proud of his visa,” said Rip Simonick, the Sabres’ equipment trainer, to the LA Times back in 1989. “Once he had it he showed it to everybody. It meant something to him, like a birth certificate. A birth certificate to the Free World.”

Defecting from the Soviet Union was no easy task, both physically and emotionally. Physically, the national team was under constant surveillance by government agents whose job it was to make sure the players did not even think about leaving. That constant surveillance left little time to plan an escape with people on the other side of the Iron Curtain. Emotionally, if you defected, you were not allowed to come back. Also, your family members paid the price for you leaving. They could lose their jobs, be interrogated by the government, and most importantly, they may never see you again. That was a steep price to pay for a 20-year-old kid. A difficult decision at any age no less. However, one he had to.

“If the bird can fly and the fish can swim, you have to be able to move around the world and be free not watched constantly. If a human being doesn’t have freedom, that’s not life. It’s like living in a cage. To me, you might as well be dead,” Mogilny told The Hockey News in 2009.

Mogilny paved the way for many Russians to come over to America. Most notably, Sergei Fedorov, who defected two years after Mogilny. In the NHL, Fedorov had three Stanley Cup rings with the Detroit Red Wings. In his historic 20 seasons in the NHL, Fedorov played in 1,248 games, amassing 483 goals and 696 assists for 1,179 points. Fedorov was also part of the 2015 Hockey Hall of Fame induction class. Another famous Russian, Pavel Bure, played in 702 NHL games, scoring 437 goals, 342 assists for 779 points. Bure was inducted in 2012.

And if all that was not enough, Mogilny put up some impressive numbers as well. In the 990 NHL games he played, he scored 473 goals and had 1032 points. His NHL career ended in 2005 with the New Jersey Devils. Mogilny would also play for the Vancouver Canucks and Toronto Maple Leafs.

To put those numbers into perspective, 2017 inductee Paul Kariya played in 989 NHL games and had 989 points. Mogilny’s fellow countryman Sergei Makarov played in 424 games and had 384 points. Los Angeles Kings legend Luc Robitaille played in 1431 games and had 1394 points. Finally, New York Islander great Clark Gillies played in 958 games and had 697 points. Now, if numbers were the only basis, Mogilny should already be in if the men above were any indication.

Sergei Fedorov believes that Mogilny should be in the hall. “I don’t want to say, like, ‘Absolutely!’ but I really do,” Fedorov said to The Hockey News in 2015. “He deserves that honor. Alex was faster than all of us and Alex was a machine. Plus on top of all the crazy skill he had, he’s better than all of us. He’s amazing.”

So Lanny McDonald and the selection committee, maybe for the 2018 candidates you may want to consider Alexander Mogilny for the Hall of Fame. He has waited long enough.

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