The 2023 NHL Hockey Hall of Fame class was announced on Wednesday, headlined by a trio of former superstar goaltenders.
Henrik Lundqvist, Pierre Turgeon, Mike Vernon, Tom Barrasso and Caroline Ouellette headlined the Hockey Hall of Fame five-player 2023 class by the league on Wednesday.
Ken Hitchcock and Pierre Lacroix will also be included as builders.
Each year, the HHOF committee elects members for induction in four categories: a maximum of four male players, two female players, one referee or linesman; and two builders, or one builder if one on-ice referee or linesman is selected, per TSN.
Lundqvist will be inducted into the Hall of Fame in his first year of eligibility. Although he never won a Stanley Cup, he is considered one of the greatest goalies of his generation; only Marc-Andre Fleury has started and won more games than the Swedish star during the salary-cap era.
He owns 459 victories, the sixth-most in NHL history. He won the Vezina Trophy as the league's best goalie in 2012, and was a finalist four other times in his storied 15-year career, entirely spent with the New York Rangers.
Lundqvist marched the Rangers all the way to the Stanley Cup Final in 2014 before losing to the Los Angeles Kings. Still, he won an Olympic gold medal as the starting goalie with Sweden in 2006, and won a silver medal after losing to Canada in the final in 2014. He also captured a World Championship gold medal in 2017.
Fellow goaltenders Tom Barrasso and Mike Vernon will join Lundqvist; Barrasso backstopped the Pittsburgh Penguins to back-to-back Stanley Cup championships in 1991 and 1992, while Vernon helped the Calgary Flames win their only championship in 1989.
The 44-year-old Caroline Ouellette is one of the most decorated players in women's hockey history, winning four Olympic gold medals with Team Canada throughout her career, as well as six golds and six silvers at the IIHF Women's World Championships.
Until Wednesday, Pierre Turgeon was the highest-scoring eligible player not to be in the Hockey Hall of Fame. A former first overall pick in the 1987 NHL Draft, he scored 515 goals and 812 assists over 1,294 career games over 19 seasons.
The five players and two builders will be inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame on Nov. 13 in Toronto.
The 2022 Hall of Fame class featured Daniel and Henrik Sedin, Roberto Luongo, Daniel Alfredsson and Riikka Sallinen as the player inductees, with Herbert Carnegie as a builder.
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