Welcome to LWOS Hockey’s summer series, Call to the Hall, where we take a look at the next great player from each NHL franchise to get called to the Hockey Hall of Fame. There are a few caveats, the player must be active, and must have played 300 games (or 150 for goaltenders) with the franchise.
Check out the previous Call to the Hall articles HERE.
Call to the Hall: Colorado Avalanche
The Avalanche have had a bevy of players inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in their relatively short history, from franchise pillars and all-time NHL greats Joe Sakic, Peter Forsberg and Patrick Roy to icons who just had a cup of coffee with the team towards the end of their careers like Jari Kurri and of course Ray Bourque. Going back even further to their days in Quebec, you can see names like Mats Sundin and Peter Stastny enshrined in the Hall.
However, with their glory days long behind, and most of the franchise icons from that time already inducted, there’s not many options left to consider among active players. Milan Hejduk would have been a natural choice in the Hall of Fame debate, but he retired last year and is therefore ineligible for our series. The same goes for Nathan MacKinnon and Gabriel Landeskog, two current key members of the franchise’s core who don’t meet the games played requirement but could be considered for the Hall one day if their careers go according to plan.
So, of a relatively small pool of players to choose from there were only a few who could indeed be on the bubble of the Hall of Fame debate when all is said and done at the end of their careers. One of those players in particular is hoping to do something few have done before – follow his dad into the Hall of Fame.
Paul Stastny
Stastny’s connection to the Avalanche franchise started on the day he was born in Quebec City in 1985, a year in which his father Peter would score 41 goals and 122 points for the Nordiques. Though born in Canada, the Stastnys would move to St. Louis – another city he would one day again have a strong connection to – shortly after the elder’s trade to the Blues, and young Paul would hold dual citizenship and eventually represent the U.S. internationally.
After starting his career playing high school hockey, Stastny made the jump to the college ranks with the Denver Pioneers of the WCHA, where he would find instant success in 2004-05. He would net 45 points in 42 games, taking home the WCHA Rookie of the Year award while leading the Pioneers all the way to the Frozen Four, where they would win the NCAA National Championship over North Dakota on the back of two goals by Stastny, including the game-winner.
The Avs would like what they saw out of the crafty center in the tournament, taking him 44th overall in the 2005 NHL draft. After one more season in the WCHA, Stastny made the full-time jump to the NHL, and he didn’t disappoint. Playing a major role as the team’s number two center behind Sakic, Stastny would score 28 goals and 78 points as an NHL rookie in 82 games, though he would finish second in the Calder Trophy voting as the NHL’s best rookie to Evgeni Malkin. It would also be the only season to this point in which Stastny played every game.
Still, it was a promising debut for the 21-year-old, who would follow it up with a very strong sophomore campaign. Though limited to just 66 games by appendicitis and a groin injury, Stastny scored 71 points and a career-high 1.08 points per game was good for 15th in the NHL that season. While Stastny would continue to be offensively productive, injuries (specifically a broken arm) would again arrest his development the following season, limiting him to just 11 goals and 36 points in 45 games.
However, Stastny would enter the 2009-10 season refreshed, and he would go on to play 81 games, scoring 79 points, a new career high which placed him top-20 in NHL scoring (his 59 assists that year were tied with Alex Ovechkin for 6th in the NHL).
However, as the Avs slowly descended to the bottom of the NHL ladder, so too did Stastny’s point totals, as he dropped to 57 points in 2010-11 and and 53 points in 2011-12, though he did post two more 20-goal campaigns, giving him a total of five 20-goal seasons in six years (and the only season he hadn’t accomplished the feat was the year he broke his arm).
He would have a rather uninspiring lockout-shortened 2012-13 season, netting just nine goals and 25 points in 40 games, though not too far off his usual pace, and he would increase his totals the following season, hitting the 25-goal plateau for the second time, and notching 60 points for the fourth. He and the emerging core around him including the aforementioned MacKinnon and Landeskog would help propel Colorado back to the playoffs for the first time since 2010. While the Avalanche would drop a seven-game series to the Wild in the opening round, Stastny had a monster series, scoring an incredible five goals and 10 points in those seven games.
Sadly for Avs fans, it would be the last they would see of Stastny in a Colorado uniform, as he went on to sign a big-money deal with the St. Louis Blues as a UFA in the summer of 2014, where he struggled to find his game last season and posted uncharacteristically low numbers (16 goals and 46 points in 74 games).
All told through nine seasons, Stastny has recorded 176 goals and 328 assists for 504 points in 612 games – a tidy 0.85 points per game average. Where that puts him in the Hall of Fame discussion by the time he retires can be a bit difficult to project at this point – especially considering his tendency to miss time with injuries. If he can get into 70 games a season, plays until he’s 39 years old, and hits his career average in points each season, it’s conceivable he could add 595 points to his current total, which would put him at 1099 points – beyond the usual threshold for Hall consideration.
However, that’s a best case scenario situation for Stastny. At 29 years old, we’ve likely already seen his offensive ceiling, and asking him to maintain that 20-goal, 70-point level for the next decade might be too much. It’s not impossible for Stastny to break out with the Blues (despite the unappetizing taste his first season in St. Louis left in many people’s mouths) and have a few big offensive seasons, but he’s a long way from the types of numbers which dazzle Hall voters. Additionally, the lack of individual hardware or a Stanley Cup will significantly hamper his chances.
One thing working in his favor is his international resume, and it’s probably a good thing he decided to suit for the United States internationally, as he’s been a big part of a few American teams. He captured Olympic silver in 2010 and also played on the team that finished fourth in Sochi. He’s also made many appearances for the Americans at the IIHF World Championships, where he took home a bronze medal in 2013. In total, he has 37 points in 37 senior-level international matches.
Is Stastny a Hall of Famer today? Certainly not. But, if he can continue to remain healthy and productive, add a championship to his resume, and maybe pick up an individual award (he’s been in the Lady Byng conversation a few times, given that he’s finished with 24 penalty minutes or less in a season four times) somewhere along the way, Stastny may just have a chance to join his father Peter in the Hockey Hall of Fame.
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