Just when you were starting to think it would never happen, it finally did.
At 3 a.m. in the morning in Khabarovsk, Russia – closer to Beijing and Tokyo than to Moscow – the phone rang at the home of the president of Kontinental Hockey League team Amur Khabarovsk. The 56-year-old, roused from deep sleep, reached for the phone and answered it, to receive a simple message.
“Alexander Mogilny, congratulations on being elected to the Hockey Hall of Fame.”
If only Mogilny would have known that he would have to wait a year for every year of his career before finally joining the pantheon of hockey greats that is the Hall of Fame.
After seventeen years of waiting, the seventeen-year veteran finally received the call that only a select few will receive at the end of their careers. The first NHL drafted player to defect from the Soviet Union, Mogilny has had to wait a long, long time to get in.
“I am happy to be part of a great organization like the Hockey Hall of Fame,” Mogilny said. “I want to thank both my Russian and NHL teammates for helping me achieve this honor.”
The charismatic winger had one of the greatest goal-scoring seasons in NHL history in 1992-93 with 76 as a member of the Buffalo Sabres, behind only Wayne Gretzky (Edmonton Oilers – 92 in 1981-82 & 87 in 1983-84), Brett Hull (St. Louis Blues – 86 in 1990-91) and Mario Lemieux (Pittsburgh Penguins – 85 in 1988-89). Mogilny was inducted into the Buffalo Sabres Hall of Fame in 2011.
Between 1989-2006 Mogilny racked up 1,032 points (473 goals, 559 assists) in 990 games for the Buffalo Sabres, Vancouver Canucks, New Jersey Devils and Toronto Maple Leafs. He would win the Stanley Cup with Martin Brodeur and the Devils in 1999-2000 and the gold medal with the Soviet Union at the 1988 Calgary Olympics and the 1989 World Championship, making him a member of the IIHF Triple Gold Club.
Mogilny is the 14th Sabres player to enter the Hall of Fame, and will be inducted alongside Jennifer Botterill, Zdeno Chara, Brianna Decker, Duncan Keith, Jack Parker, Daniele Sauvageau and Joe Thornton on Monday, November 10th.
From the Sabres website –
The Sabres drafted Mogilny with the 89th pick in 1988, a calculated gamble at a time when young Soviet players were restricted from playing in the NHL. Former Sabres forward Don Luce, then working for the organization in a player development role, had scouted Mogilny at the 1988 World Junior Championship in Moscow and left with a glowing report for general manager Gerry Meehan.
“I told Gerry he was the best player in the world at the time but chances of him coming were slim to none,” Luce recalled in 2020. “So, we decided to take a chance and draft him in the fifth round.”
Luce met Mogilny the following year at the World Junior Championship in Anchorage, Alaska, and informed him of his selection by the Sabres. Luce and Meehan traveled to Stockholm, Sweden, that spring to aid Mogilny in his defection to the United States, a three-day operation during which the parties met in secret locations and changed hotels nightly to avoid detection by the KGB.
“You didn’t know what was going to happen,” Luce said. “You didn’t know what they were going to do. Every time Gerry came from the embassy he said, ‘We’ve got to be careful, they’re after us.’ You don’t sleep easy when that’s happening.”