The official NHL Twitter/X account sparked a good social media discussion on Saturday afternoon when it posted a graphic of former Philadelphia Flyers talisman Claude Giroux, asking hockey fans if the 36-year-old forward is on his way to the Hockey Hall of Fame.
It got me thinking. Is Claude Giroux a Hockey Hall of Famer?
If Giroux retired from the NHL today, the answer, unfortunately, has to be no. But can Giroux make it if he continues playing at a high level and, perhaps, wins a Stanley Cup? Absolutely, no discussion.
Let’s talk about it for a minute.
The main hang-up for me on Giroux right now is the fact that he does not lead the Flyers franchise in any major statistical categories. Although Giroux played 1,000 games and recorded 900 points in the Orange and Black, he’s quite a distance from the top in all the stats that matter. Bobby Clarke has 144 more games played, 243 more assists, and 310 more points.
Bill Barber, who leads the Flyers in all-time goals, has a 129-goal cushion separating him and Giroux.
So, while Giroux is an icon of the modern Flyers, he isn’t the best Flyer ever. Therefore, we have to turn to personal achievements.
Now an alternate captain for the Ottawa Senators in the twilight years of his career, Giroux has accumulated a total of 350 goals, 716 assists, and 1,066 points in 1,182 regular season games. In the playoffs, Giroux has 28 goals, 53 assists, and 81 points in 95 postseason contests, though all he has to show for it is a Stanley Cup Final loss to the Chicago Blackhawks in 2010.
And while that’s hardly his fault, the former Flyers captain hasn’t won the elusive Stanley Cup or any major individual awards at the NHL level to complement the three gold medals from his junior hockey days.
Further to that point, while Giroux has played in the NHL All-Star Game seven times, he has made the NHL All-Star Team only once in his 17-year NHL career (2017-18).
Indeed, Giroux was a great player for the Flyers, and still plays at a very high level for an Ottawa team desperate to qualify for the Stanley Cup playoffs again. But, as of right now, no, Giroux is not a Hockey Hall of Famer.
San Jose Sharks legend Patrick Marleau is a good baseline for Giroux, as the 44-year-old former winger racked up a whopping 1,779 regular season games and 1,197 points despite never winning a championship.
While Marleau, too, has a bunch of gold medals (4) to his name–two of which are Olympic gold–the difference separating him and Giroux is that Marleau is effectively the greatest Sharks player ever and Giroux is not the greatest Flyers player ever.
You would be more likely to bring up Marleau when discussing the history of the NHL than Giroux.
In terms of active players, other longtime stars, like Alexander Ovechkin, Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, Patrick Kane, Anze Kopitar, and Steven Stamkos, are all ahead of Giroux in the Hall of Fame pecking order.
And then there are other fringe cases, such as Washington Capitals center Nicklas Backstrom and New Jersey Devils icon Patrik Elias–both of whom have one or more Stanley Cups to their names.
You could even make an argument for guys like Eric Staal and Ryan Getzlaf, for that matter.
Who knows when Alexander Mogilny is getting in?
In short, Giroux’s work is not done, and the door for him to be inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame is still wide open. Reaching the 1,200 points threshold and potentially adding a Stanley Cup to his resume would greatly boost Giroux’s case, as would recording 1,000 points in a Flyers uniform.
