The Puck Stops Here

Today, future Hockey Hall of Famer Al MacInnis announced announced his retirement. TSN's story is here. This makes him the second player that I think is a future Hall of Famer to retire this week after Scott Stevens.

Al MacInnis was born in Inverness, Nova Scotia on July 11th, 1963. He left Nova Scotia at a young age for hockey. By age sixteen, he was playing in the Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League for the Regina Blues. At seventeen, he graduated to the Kitchener Rangers in the Ontario Hockey League. He was chosen by Calgary in the first round of the 1981 draft as the fifteenth overall selection.

He was returned to the OHL for the next season, where he was on the OHL first all star team, spending only two uneventful games in the NHL. He spent most of the following season in the OHL, in 82/83, playing fourteen regular season games in Calgary. MacInnis was again named to the OHL first all star team. The Flames were still not fully convinced. They had MacInnis split his time the next season with the CHL Colorado Flames and the NHL Calgary Flames. MacInnis developed into Calgary's power play point man that season. In the 1984 playoffs, he got his first chance to really shine with Calgary. He scored 14 points in 11 playoff games. That was good for second in scoring on the Flames in that playoff run. The following season MacInnis made his first NHL All Star game. It was the first of thirteen he played in during his career. He continued to become a star. In the 1986 Calgary playoff run, he lead the entire NHL in assists in the playoffs with 15. In 1987, he made the Second Team All Star for the first time. In 1989, he lead the Flames to their only Stanley Cup, leading the league in playoff assists and points and winning the Conn Smythe trophy as playoff MVP. He also made the Second Team All Star again. In 1990, he followed that up with his first time being named to the First Team All Star. This was something he repeated in 1991, which was his best offensive season of his career (MacInnis scored 103 points). The 1993/94 season was MacInnis's final year in Calgary and his third trip to the Second Team All Star.

That summer, he was about to sign as a free agent in St Louis. The Blues were uneasy about the compensation they might have to give up (afterall they had to give up Scott Stevens for signing Brendan Shanahan a couple years earlier), so they negotiated a trade with Calgary and then signed him. St Louis acquired MacInnis and a fourth round draft pick in 1997 for Phil Housley and their 2nd round picks in 1996 and 1997. In his first year in St Louis, MacInnis again made the First Team All Star. In 1999, MacInnis won the Norris Trophy as best defenceman in the NHL and again made the First Team All Star. His final full NHL season was 2002/03 where again MacInnis made the First Team All Star. The 2003/04 season was cut very short as an eye injury limited him to only 3 games played.

MacInnis always had a positive +/- rating every season of his NHL career (except for the abbreviated 3 game 2003/04 year where he was -1). In international play, MacInnis represented Canada in the 1990 World Championships, the 1991 Canada Cup, where he made the tournament all star team and the 1998 and 2002 Olympics. MacInnis is remembered for possibly the hardest slapshot in NHL history. This made him the prototypical power play point man. He was also a very good defensive presence who was always learning new tricks to shut down the opposition.

MacInnis is retiring to join the St Louis Blues front office in a scouting or player development capacity. He wants to spend more time with his four young children. One day, he may want to try his hand in a coaching capacity.

With MacInnis's retirement, there are sixteen currently active NHL players who I believe should make the Hockey Hall of Fame reardless of what they do (or do not do) for the remainder of their careers. They are:

Dave Andreychuk
Ed Belfour
Martin Brodeur
Chris Chelios
Ron Francis
Dominik Hasek
Brett Hull
Jaromir Jagr
Brian Leetch
Mario Lemieux
Nicklas Lidstrom
Mark Messier
Luc Robitaille
Joe Sakic
Brendan Shanahan
Steve Yzerman

This list may continue to shrink, as Ron Francis and Mark Messier remain unsigned and may retire.