The yearly plea for Sergei Gonchar to be inducted to the Hockey Hall of Fame

Will the defensemen finally get the call?

The Hockey Hall of Fame will announce its 2024 class on Tuesday, which means it’s time once again for the annual call for them to include Sergei Gonchar.

Can rinse and repeat the whole thing, but for brevity’s sake we won’t. Gonchar enjoyed a lengthy career, finished 18th in career NHL defensemen scoring despite a bulk of of his career in the dead puck era.

It’s a crowded class to consider. Pavel Datsyuk, Shea Weber, Patrick Marleau, Pekka Rinne, Ilya Kovalchuk and Ryan Miller are all eligible for the first time; all with some degree of consideration. Gonchar will join holdovers in Alexander Mogilny, Rod Brind’Amour and Henrik Zetterberg.

The HHOF classes can be notoriously difficult to predict ahead of time, so who knows if this seventh year of eligibility will finally be the time for Gonchar to take his place. If it’s not this year, the wait could be even longer since defenders Zdeno Chara and Duncan Keith become eligible for induction in 2025 and might jump the line on him.

Now that Tom Barrasso is in the Hall, Marleau joins Gonchar ass the current player with Penguin connections to be up for the HOF. What a weird time that was, Marleau was picked up by the Pens ahead of the 2020 playoffs but then the COVID pandemic shut the league down after he played eight games. Even when he was with Pittsburgh, we were writing about how he was likely to return to San Jose as a free agent, and that’s exactly what happened after four more unmemorable games in the bubble.

Marleau broke one of the more vaunted records in hockey — Gordie Howe’s all-time games played mark. But Marleau ranks only 52nd in all-time scoring, leading to the question if his durability and simply been very good for a very long time will be enough to take his place in the Hall.