Theoren Fleury: Hall-worthy?

1084 NHL games, 455 goals, 633 assists, 1088 career points.

Friends, Flames' fans, countrymen, lend me your eyes!
I come to praise Fleury, not to bury him
The good that hockey players do lives after them
The bad is oft interred in enemies' memories, pffft
So let it be with Fleury.

With apologies to Shakespeare and Mark Antony (no, not Mr JLo), I think the case can be made that Theo has to be seriously considered for the Hockey Hall of Fame. I watched with some interest as our brothers in Hockeydom, Oilerfanz (spits) lobbied for Glenn Anderson and rejoiced upon his successful entry into Hockey's shrine. I think Theo's case is similar and I think the case is considerably stronger than, "If Clark Gillies is in, they should let everyone in". A simplistic argument that, even I, may have made and yet may make in the future, but lets at least have a look at the tale of the tape.

• Anderson was 55th all time in career points scored; Fleury is 56th.
• Theoren averaged 1.004 pts/game good for 47th all time.
• 51 goals, 104pts, +48 (1st in league in +/-) in 90/91.
• 8 30 goal seasons, and had 29 in 47 games in '94 (strike year).
• Played in 7 NHL All Star games.
• 11 pts in 22 playoff gms in 89 playoffs for Stanley Cup Champs as a rookie.
• 79 career playoff pts in 77 career playoff gms.
• 67 game winning goals, 37th all time.
  
• 35 career Short Handed Goals; 9th all time.
  

And like Anderson there are some off ice stuff thats going to hurt his chances. Items on the other side of the ledger, like Theo's suspension, the problems with booze that haunted the late stages of his career, his refusal or inability to get or accept help for his addiction. But hockey-wise, I think he put together a very impressive body of work. Ultimately his HHOF fate may not be decided by his accomplishments or even his off-ice skeletons but rather by who his competition will be for the coveted 4 spots per year. Players not in the Hall right now but who'll be considered in the next few years include; Adam Oates, Doug Gilmour, Luc Robataille, Brett Hull, Dave Andreychuk, Brian Leetch and Phil Housley. His best chance is probably the next 3 or 4 classes before players like Sundin, Modano, Shanahan, Selane, Roenick, Fedorov, Chelios and Forsberg retire and become eligible. Do I think Theo will make it in? I think it'll be VERY close if he does, and I'd probably estimate his chances at no more than 2 in 5. I hope he's not destined to become the best player NOT in the Hall.

UPDATE

Some comments from awildermode spurred me to include the following into the post here, to be more of a complete record of Theo's career.

Represented his country in international competition 8 times:

Twice in the World Junior tournament, winning a gold medal

Twice at the World Championships, winning a silver medal

1991 Canada Cup, member of championship team

1996 World Cup of Hockey, member of 2nd place team

Twice at the Olympic Games, winning a Gold Medal.


Well done, sir.


Upperdate:

I know, I know, I'm flogging this one a little hard, but I collected the following data and I'll just include it here in this post so all the Fleury stuff will be in one place:

Another way to compare Anderson and Fleury is to look at them in their respective primes. The prime years of their careers; the ages of 21-29 ( I chose these years as 'prime' because 21 was the age each player first played a complete season in the NHL and 29 was the last full year for Fleury in Calgary) occured roughly 9 years apart. Anderson's wholly within the high flying eighties and Fleury's overlapping into the dead puck zone.

Anderson's prime: 81/82-89/90 359 goals 429 assists 788 points
Fleury's prime: 89/90-97/98 320 goals 407 assists 727 points

Looked at this way, it appears the players are close but with Anderson getting the edge. But if you look back at their respective eras:

Edmonton Oilers total goals for: 81/82-89/90 3489 goals
Calgary Flames total goals for: 89/90-97/98 2447 goals

So in context, Fleury was gathering his points on a team that was scoring only about 70% of the total goal opportunities that Anderson was a part of. Now, is it Anderson's fault that the Flames didn't score as much as the Oilers? No, but I think any fair observer has to take some of the overall surrounding context into account if and when you compare them. I think if Theoren hadn't lost half of '94/95 season (he was on 100 pt pace) and of course made more of his late career opportunities and had gotten to 500 goals, he'd have eventually gotten into the HHOF, it might have taken a while, but I think (I'm planning a future post about it) the 500 goal threshold is going to get bigger and bigger going forward.