Lightning Round: Hockey Hall of Fame Inductees announced (and how the Lightning helped)

On Monday, the Hockey Hall of Fame announced their 2022 induction class. The newest members of the hallowed halls are: Roberto Luongo, Daniel and Henrik Sedin, Daniel Alfredsson, Riikka Sallinen, and Herb Carnagie. The five players and the family of the late Carnagie, who was added in the builder’s category, will celebrate their induction on November 14th.

In the mid-40s he spent four seasons in the Quebec Provincial League and racked up 339 points in just 179 games, earning MVP honors in two of those seasons. He would later join the Quebec Aces of the Quebec Senior Hockey League, record 269 points in 287 games and add another MVP award. In another time he would have been a shoe-in for the NHL, but because of the color of his skin all he was ever offered was a try-out with the New York Rangers. They offered him a contract to play in their minor league system for less money then he was making in a semi-professional league so he turned them down.

Following his playing career he founded the Future Aces hockey school and established the Herbert H. Carnagie Future Aces Foundation which has awarded $860,000 in scholarships to children across the country since 1987. Carnagie passed away in 2012.

Riikka Sallinen is the first player from women’s hockey that was born outside of the U.S. or Canada to be inducted into the Hall of Fame. The Finnish star recorded 514 points (240 goals, 274 assists) in 227 games in the Finnish Elite League. In 81 career international games she recorded 63 goals and 59 assists while 12 medals. In 2018, the then 44-year-old helped Finland win the bronze medal at the Olympics and became the oldest player to ever win an Olympic medal in hockey.

Daniel Alfredsson played in a lot of hockey games, most of them for Ottawa. Roberto Luongo was a really good goaltender for a long time with a lot of teams and without the 18 wins in 42 career games against the Lightning he might not have made the Hall of Fame.

However, it was his teammates in Vancouver, Henrik and Daniel Sedin, who can owe at least part of their career to the Tampa Bay Lightning. Like everything else they’ve done in hockey the Sedins are being inducted together. They entered the league together as well, back in 1999.

They made it known that they wanted to play together in the NHL so a team drafting one of them would have to draft both of them. As they were highly-touted prospects it would take some finagling from a team to make it work. The Lightning held the number one over pick that year and were one of the teams trying to work out a deal with the Sedins or with other teams looking to take them. According to the Tampa Tribune there were rumors that the Lightning were dangling Darcy Tucker and Cory Cross as trade bait for another top-five pick so that they could draft the brothers. How would the fortunes of the Lightning changed if they had managed to pull that off?

One of the reasons they didn’t pull it off may have been because no one was sure exactly who had the authority to make the deal. The draft was happening as Art Williams was finalizing his deal with Palace Entertainment and Sports. Jacques Demers was the General Manager, but Rick Dudley was the incoming vice president of hockey operations. Apparently Williams didn’t give Dudley authorization to make any deals until Friday afternoon, the day before the draft.

In the end, the Lightning ended up trading out of the first round all together and it was the Vancouver Canucks who managed to work the mechanisms needed to pull off the the coup. How did it go? Like this:

The Lightning traded the first overall pick to Vancouver for the fourth overall pick in 1999 and two 1999 third-round picks.

Vancouver traded the first overall pick to Atlanta for the second overall pick and a 2000 conditional third round pick (along with the promise not to draft either of the Sedins). Vancouver used that pick to select Daniel Sedin and their own pick (third overall) to draft Henrik.

As for the Lightning, they weren’t done. They did keep both of the third round picks which they used to pick Brett Scheffelmaier and Jimmy Olvestad. They traded the fourth overall pick to the New York Rangers for Dan Cloutier, Niklas Sundstrom, a 2000 first round pick, and a 2000 third round pick. Cloutier was needed as the number one netminder after the Atlanta Thrashers had taken Corey Schwab in the expansion draft the day before and Daren Puppa’s back remained wonky. Tampa Bay would eventually trade Cloutier to Vancouver where he would play with the Sedins.

Sundstrom and that extra third round pick were traded later that summer for Shawn Burr, Steve Guolla, Bill Houlder, and Andrei Zyuzin. The Lightning kept the extra first round pick and used it to draft Nikita Alexeev. While they used that pick (#8 overall), they actually traded their own (#5 overall) to the New York Islanders in a deal for Kevin Weekes.

Outside of the Canucks, the fact that the Lightning traded out of the garbage fire that was the 1999 first round may have made the Bolts the second biggest winner out of the draft.

NHL News

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Old friend Mathieu Joseph shows off his closet for the NHL’s Style Check. The custom life vest is fantastic. Also, the fact that his rings are just on a makeshift table in his closet is hilarious.

The Toronto Maple Leafs kicked off the post-postseason signing season as they inked Timothy Liljergen to a two-year deal, taking care of one of their RFAs.

Much like the Tweet says, how are we just seeing this now? Check out the back-checking skills of Bert, a defensive forward in the mold of a healthy Tony Cirelli.