Hockey Hall of Fame again snubs Canes coach Brind'Amour

RALEIGH, N.C. (WTVD) -- The Hockey Hall of Fame announced this year's class of inductees on Wednesday and again Carolina Hurricanes coach and former player Rod Brind'Amour was not chosen.

Brind'Amour has been eligible for the Hall since 2013, making this 10 years and waiting for induction.

Brind'Amour has been excellent as a coach, having changed the fortunes of the Carolina franchise, He's the only coach ever to win a playoff series in his first five seasons.

But that's not why he should be in the Hall of Fame. What he did on the ice, specifically for the Carolina franchise is simply remarkable.

In addition to being the captain on the Hurricanes' only Stanley Cup championship team, he's 25th all-time in games played, 62nd in goals, and 53rd in assists and total points.

Yet that resume hasn't landed him in the Hall of Fame.

The snub prompted the Canes to tweet this:

A lot of people are wondering the same thing, not only in the Triangle but across the hockey world.

Former Canes goalie Tom Barrasso did hear his name called, so a player with a Carolina tie will be inducted, but it's not the guy we expected.

OTHER INDUCTEES

Henrik Lundqvist had posters of Barrasso and Mike Vernon on a wall in his bedroom when he was growing up in Sweden hoping to play in the NHL.

Decades later, he is joining those fellow goalies in the Hockey Hall of Fame.

Lundqvist was elected Wednesday in his first year of eligibility.

"Of course as a kid when you grow up, you look at the goalies that are playing well and how they play the game and how they compete and that's how you get inspired," Lundqvist said. "Thinking about players in the Hall of Fame, it's such a big inspiration to me, why I started playing hockey."

Former NHL forward Pierre Turgeon and Canadian women's hockey star Caroline Ouellette were the other players chosen by the 18-person selection committee. Stanley Cup-winning coach Ken Hitchcock and late executive Pierre Lacroix were picked to be inducted in the builder category.

Barrasso won the Cup with Pittsburgh back to back in 1991 and '92. He had been eligible since 2006 and long ago came to peace with the idea of not making the Hall. Selection committee chairman Mike Gartner and board chairman Lanny McDonald had a difficult time reaching him to deliver the news.

"I was definitely not waiting by the phone," said Barrasso, who won the Vezina and the Calder Trophy as rookie of the year in 1983-84 to start a nearly 20-year NHL career. "Do you make that grade or not is not for you to decide. It's for others to decide. ... It's a tremendous honor to have been selected by the committee, and it puts a bit of validation on the idea of what I thought along the way of my career."

Vernon was so surprised he thought McDonald, a teammate when they won the Cup together with Calgary in 1989, was calling to ask him to play golf. The two-time Cup champion who was also playoff MVP when he won it in 1997 with Detroit had been eligible since 2005.

"The game has meant a lot to me throughout my life," Vernon said. "It is an emotional time for me. Might be a long time coming, but it's still worth it."

While Brind'Amour continues to wait, so does point-a-game Russian winger Alexander Mogilny and goaltender Curtis Joseph, who is just five victories behind Lundqvist on the NHL career list.

The Associated Press contributed.