Road to the Hall for new inductees wound through AHL

Road to the Hall for new inductees wound through AHL

Patrick Williams, TheAHL.com Features Writer The paths for Patrice Bergeron, Carey Price and Pekka Rinne have taken them to the Hockey Hall of Fame. But the trio’s respective roads to Monday night’s enshrinement in Toronto also featured crucial stops in the AHL as top prospects. As the AHL increasingly intensified its focus on player development through the decades, the league’s presence among the game’s greats continues to grow. Bergeron, Price and Rinne are part of the wave of top talent that swept through the AHL in the 2000’s before going on to NHL and international success. How deep was that talent in the decade in which the AHL took over as the NHL’s sole top development league? Consider this: the Hershey Bears had to face Rinne (2006) and Price (2007) in back-to-back years in the Calder Cup Finals. In all, 140 players, coaches, officials and executives with ties to the American Hockey League have entered the Hockey Hall of Fame. Patrice Bergeron Most of the long list of Providence alumni who went on to success with the Boston Bruins started first in the AHL. Bergeron, who ended up playing 19 seasons for Boston before retiring in 2023, took a bit of a detour to the AHL instead. A second-round draft pick in 2003, he made the NHL team’s roster as an 18-year-old that fall and had a standout season. However, the 2004-05 NHL lockout left Bergeron without a place to play. The NHL allowed young prospects to sign AHL deals so they would not lose a year of development; Bergeron joined Providence and adapted quickly to the AHL game. He earned a selection to the AHL All-Star Classic and ended up finishing with 61 points (21 goals, 40 assists) in 68 games. But that deep, hard-nosed Providence team found even more success in the Calder Cup Playoffs. They pushed the eventual champion Philadelphia Phantoms to six games in the Eastern Conference Finals as Bergeron supplied 12 points (five goals, seven assists) in 16 postseason contests. Bergeron’s Boston run included 1,040 points (427 goals and 613 assists) in 1,294 games, a Stanley Cup championship in 2011, and winning the Selke Trophy six times. He also represented Canada internationally, winning the Olympic gold medal in 2010 and 2014 as well the IIHF World Championship gold medal in 2004. The honors aren’t finished for Bergeron, either. Boston will retire his number 37 at TD Garden on Dec. 1. Carey Price Price made his stay in the AHL brief but memorable. Taken fifth overall in the 2005 NHL Draft by the Montreal Canadiens, Price already had made himself a top name at the junior level. He took Canada to a gold medal and was named the most valuable player at the 2007 IIHF World Junior Hockey Championship and capped four outstanding seasons with Tri-City of the Western Hockey League by being named the Canadian Hockey League’s goaltender of the year. But Price was only getting started. The 19-year-old’s pro debut came with the Bulldogs on April 13, 2007 in a 27-save win against the visiting Grand Rapids Griffins. He was instilled as the Bulldogs’ playoff starter and opened the postseason with a 34-save shutout at Rochester. From there, he took Hamilton into the Calder Cup Finals against a formidable Hershey club in the middle of a stretch of four Finals appearances in five years. Price backstopped the Bulldogs to a five-game series win, earning the Jack A. Butterfield Trophy as the most valuable player of the Calder Cup Playoffs with 15 wins, a 2.06 goals-against average and a .936 save percentage. He played 10 more games for Hamilton as a follow-up in 2007-08 before securing full-time work with the Canadiens. Price, who retired in 2022, ended up playing 15 seasons in Montreal and is the franchise’s all-time leader with 361 wins. He won the Vezina Trophy and the Hart Trophy in 2014-15 and was Bergeron’s teammate with the 2014 Olympic gold medal team. Price will join the Canadiens’ Ring of Honor in a ceremony before tonight’s game against Minnesota at Bell Centre. Pekka Rinne Milwaukee has sent wave after wave of talent onward to the Nashville Predators for decades, and Rinne ranks among the very best of those success stories. Selected as an eighth-round pick in 2004, Rinne came to Milwaukee a year later and quickly found success. He took the Admirals to the 2006 Calder Cup Finals and had three shutouts that postseason. In his first three AHL seasons, he represented Milwaukee twice at the AHL All-Star Classic. In 2007-08, he led all AHL goaltenders with 65 regular-season games. His AHL career featured 147 games as he went 83-49-11 with a 2.54 GAA, a .910 save percentage, and 10 shutouts. From there, he eventually played 15 seasons for Nashville, registering 369 wins in 683 games. He won the Vezina Trophy in 2017-18 before concluding his NHL career in 2021. He also represented Finland several times, including at the 2016 World Cup of Hockey. Rinne’s Nashville ties remain strong, and he is in his fourth season with the organization in a development and scouting role. Brian Burke In addition to the player inductees, Burke has been selected this year in the Hall of Fame’s builder category as a long-time NHL executive. Burke made his pro debut with the Springfield Indians in the spring of 1977, following his senior year at Providence College. His only full season came in 1977-78 with the Maine Mariners, when he played 65 regular-season games and won the Calder Cup. When the AHL added the Manitoba Moose along with five other teams from the now-defunct International Hockey League in 2001, he aided in setting up the Vancouver Canucks’ new affiliation with the Moose.