Former Flyers Mark Recchi Inducted into Hockey Hall of Fame
One of the more unfathomable omissions in Hockey Hall of Fame history will have his day.
Mark Recchi, who played 602 of his 1,652 NHL games with the Flyers, will be part of the Class of 2017 in the Hockey Hall of Fame. In his career, which spanned from 1988 to 2011, the 5-foot-10 winger scored 577 goals and 956 assists and won three Stanley Cups.
Those numbers are good enough for 12th on the NHL’s all-time scoring list. Each of the top 28 scorers on the list that were eligible were already in the Hall of Fame. Recchi has been eligible since 2014.
Teemu Selanne, who is 15th on the list, will also be inducted this November along Paul Kariya, Dave Andreychuk and Danielle Goyette. University of Alberta coach Clare Drake and Boston Bruins owner Jeremy Jacobs were inducted in the builders category. The ceremony for the induction of the class will be Monday, November 13 at the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto.
“He was a pitbull for a guy that size,” said Flyers president Paul Holmgren, who was a head coach briefly during Recchi’s first tour of duty with the Flyers and the assistant general manager for his second. “With the longevity that he had, he played when he was 42 years old. He’s not a very big guy and his legs were always chugging, his arms were always chugging, but he was really a smart player, particularly offensively. He could create something out of nothing a lot of times and he could fit with whatever skilled player you wanted to put him with.”
Recchi, a seven-time All-Star, put together one of the longest careers in NHL history. His 1,652 games are fifth in the league all-time.