When outgoing chairman of the board Lanny McDonald and Ron Francis, the chair of the selection committee, called Joe Thornton in June, they didn’t welcome him to the hallowed halls of the NHL Hall of Fame.
“Welcome to the Hockey Hall of Fame,” Francis said.
Located in Toronto, the Hockey Hall of Fame isn’t just the home of the NHL’s legends. Lining the halls are the faces of USA women’s hockey stars Cammi Granato and Angela Ruggiero, former Soviet Union goalie Vladislav Tretiak, and legendary college hockey coaches Jerry York of Boston College and Boston University’s Jack Parker, who was inducted on Monday.
It took 17 ridiculously long years for trailblazer Alexander Mogilny, who also averaged over a point a game for his career and won a Stanley Cup, a Lady Byng Trophy, and dominated internationally, to be inducted this year. With the Mogilny wrong righted, who’s next? Well, it’s been 20 years since a certain local goalie last played in the NHL, and it’s about time he took his rightful place among hockey immortality.
It’s time for Mike Richter to be inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame. Let’s look at his resumé:
Education: Growing the game
When Richter retired in 2003 due to post-concussion syndrome, he ranked third among American-born goalies in wins with 301. The native of Flourtown trailed only former Flyer John Vanbiesbrouck, his former goalie partner with the New York Rangers, and Hockey Hall of Famer Tom Barrasso.
Although he now sits seventh in terms of wins, the rise of American goalies can be traced back to the roots he planted while starring on Broadway. Jonathan Quick sits atop the list today — ironically set to wrap up his Hall of Fame career at Madison Square Garden, too — and grew up idolizing Richter from his hometown in Connecticut. Former NHLer Cory Schneider,the 26th overall pick in 2004, has stated Richter was his hockey idol while growing up in Massachusetts.
Michigan native Connor Hellebuyck has won the last two — and three total — Vezina Trophies as the NHL’s best goalie and was last season’s MVP. In 2014, while at UMass Lowell, he was named the inaugural winner of the Mike Richter Award, awarded to the most outstanding goalie in men’s NCAA hockey. Fittingly, it was handed out at the Frozen Four in Richter’s native Philly by the former University of Wisconsin goalie and the late Bernie Parent, whom Richter grew up idolizing.
Richter played two NCAA seasons, going 33-25-1 for the Badgers, and was the 1985 Western Collegiate Hockey Association’s Freshman of the Year. The fact that the U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame member has a national award named after him already sets the tone for his induction case.
» READ MORE: Rangers great Mike Richter on his idol in goal, Bernie Parent: ‘I followed his every move’
Work experience: International expertise
The international resumé helped propel former NHLer Vaclav Nedomanský into the Hall in 2019. So why not Richter?
Long before he donned the famous Statue of Liberty goalie mask with the Rangers, Richter wore red, white, and blue for the U.S. He represented his country 10 times, beginning at the 1985 World Junior Championship, and the following year, he played in four of the seven games at the round-robin tournament. That year, long before the program became the perennial contender it is today, he helped USA Hockey win bronze, the country’s first medal in the tournament’s history.
At the 1988 Calgary Olympics, the U.S. didn’t advance to the medal round, but Richter was the starting goalie for four of the team’s five games. Slowly but surely, Richter was building momentum on the global stage.
In 1991, Richter played in all seven games at the Canada Cup, leading the U.S. to the final series with Canada — the only country to beat the U.S. in round-robin action — before falling. Two years later, he played in four games as the Americans lost to the silver-medal-winning Swedes in the quarterfinals of the Worlds.
And then came the 1996 World Cup. Putting on an MVP performance between the pipes — all but planting a seed that created the best goalies coming from the U.S. and not Quebec — the Pennsylvanian helped “drive the bus” straight through the heart of Canada as the Americans upset the heavy favorites.
“Let’s call it what it is,” former Flyer Joel Otto said in February of Richter’s performance in 1996. “He was incredible.”
“To win a short tournament like that, you need great goaltending, that’s going to be a key for any team going into it, and we had it,” Flyers legend John LeClair added. “Ricky was tremendous from start to finish.”
» READ MORE: Team USA enters the 4 Nations Face-Off seeking hockey supremacy. The Americans’ 1996 World Cup team paved the way.
Richter was the goalie for the disastrous — a collective effort — 1998 Nagano Olympics. However, he ended his tenure with USA Hockey at the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics, earning silver with a loss to Canada and his rival, Martin Brodeur, in the final. At that tournament, he posted a .932 save percentage — better than his .923 at the World Cup.
USA Hockey has since become a powerhouse, with the U.S. National Team Development Program created shortly after the 1996 World Cup victory. Richter’s generation of American stars laid the foundation of a program that won silver at the 2010 Vancouver Olympics and beat Canada to win the first-ever gold at World Juniors in 2004. That medal was the first of six at World Juniors, including gold at the past two, and after five bronze medals at the world championships, the U.S. captured the top prize for the first time in 92 years this past May.
Practical experience: NHL goalie
And yes, there is the NHL.
Richter, despite a career severely impacted by injury, retired atop the Rangers’ all-time wins list with 301 (since passed by Hall of Famer Henrik Lundqvist) and posted a 2.89 goals-against average, a .904 save percentage, and 24 shutouts over his 14-year career.
Stacked up against legends of the game like Patrick Roy, Dominik Hasek, and Brodeur during the golden age of NHL goaltending, he didn’t win a Vezina Trophy. But he did come close, finishing third in 1991 as a 24-year-old when he collected 21 wins in 45 games and had the NHL’s third-best save percentage among goalies with at least 40 games played (.903). Voted on by the NHL’s general managers, he earned one first-place vote, like Roy, with Ed Belfour winning the trophy.
While Richter’s .904 career save percentage might not pop off the page at first, look a little closer and account for the era he played in, and it paints a different picture. The league average save percentage during Richter’s 14-year career was .898, and in the .880s during his first four seasons.
Richter’s save percentage and goals-against average numbers are also better than contemporaries like Barrasso (. 892, 3.24), Mike Vernon (. 889, 3.00), and Grant Fuhr (. 887, 3.38), who have all been inducted over the past 25 years. Belfour, another Hall of Famer from that era, had a .906 career save percentage.
The USA Hockey Hall of Famer is one of just 19 goalies ever to have 300 wins, a career save percentage over .900, and over 90 goals saved above average, according to Hockey Reference. He was also at his best in the biggest games, posting a .909 career save percentage over 76 playoff contests.
The Germantown Academy grad’s resumé also includes a Stanley Cup. The athletic goalie would go on to make saves without his glove, do improbable splits, stop Pavel Bure’s famous penalty-shot attempt, and stand taller than his 5-foot-11 frame — all while helping the Rangers break a 52-year curse on the way to the 1994 Stanley Cup.
By the end of his 14-year career and 666 regular-season games, Richter was a three-time NHL All-Star, including an MVP turn in the 1994 game at his home rink, MSG. He also backstopped the Rangers to the 1997 Eastern Conference Final, falling to his favorite team growing up, the Flyers.
Richter’s name is littered all over the Rangers’ record book, often only eclipsed by Lundqvist, who played his entire 15-year career in New York. The top category he bested Lundqvist in is wins in a single season, with Richter winning 42 games for the 1994 Presidents’ Trophy-winning squad. That total led the NHL that year, too, as Richter finished sixth for the Vezina behind Hašek.
And in 1997-98, he tied Hašek with 72 games played with 72. The Czech goalie again won the Vezina, with Richter finishing fifth.
References: Provided if necessary
Goalies are a rare breed in the Hockey Hall of Fame. For whatever reason, despite being the backbone of every single team regardless of organization, only 36 have been elected.
Is Richter the only one who has been snubbed? Absolutely not. There are plenty of netminders who deserve to be in — including Richter.
A significant chunk of Richter’s resumé is the impact he had on the game. Mike Richter is the godfather of American goaltending, and given his exploits at the NCAA, NHL, and international levels, he belongs in the Hockey Hall of Fame.