Mogilny election to Hockey Hall of Fame caps remarkable journey 

The 2025 Hockey Hall of Fame induction is Monday. This year’s class includes Jennifer Botterill, Zdeno Chara, Brianna Decker, Duncan Keith, Alexander Mogilny and Joe Thornton in the Players category, and Jack Parker and Daniele Sauvageau in the Builders category. Here, NHL.com senior writer Dan Rosen profiles Mogilny.

The tale of Alexander Mogilny's defection from the Soviet Union in 1989 to play in the NHL is Hall of Fame-worthy on its own merit.

An escape on an off day in Stockholm during the 1989 IIHF World Championship. A race to the car. Evading the KGB by switching hotels and aliases. Leaving family behind without a guarantee he would see them again.

"It's a story and a movie in and of itself," Hockey Hall of Famer Pat LaFontaine said. "For Alex to do what he did, it took so much courage. He was a pioneer. He helped create the necessary changes that really helped shape Russian players coming to the NHL forever and a day. It's an incredible story. And then for Alex to turn out to be the player that he was, it is a movie."

With a happy ending, finally.

The courageous and deceptive escape to get to the NHL was only the beginning for Mogilny. What he did during the next 17 years made him what many believe to be a long overdue Hall of Famer.

Mogilny will be inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame as part of the Class of 2025 on Nov. 10, a fitting honor for a player who has been eligible for induction since 2009, who finished his 16-season playing career with 1,032 points, including 473 goals, in 990 games.

He won the Stanley Cup with the New Jersey Devils in 2000. Playing internationally for the Soviet Union, he won an Olympic gold medal in 1988, and gold at the IIHF World Junior Championship and World Championship in 1989.

Mogilny was the first Russia-born player to be an NHL captain, the first to play in an NHL All-Star Game, and he holds the single-season record for most goals scored by a Russian player in the NHL with 76 in 1992-93.

"It's that guy, just what he could do," said Scott Gomez, who played with Mogilny in New Jersey. "I remember my first time on the ice with him …and I'm like, 'Are you kidding me? This is Alexander Mogilny.'"

* * *

The Sabres selected Mogilny in the fifth round (No. 89) of the 1988 NHL Draft.

"It was a total gamble," former Sabres executive Don Luce told WGRZ in Buffalo in 2014. "It was like roll the dice and hope he wants to come."

Mogilny did come to Buffalo a year later, arriving covertly only to be greeted with fanfare after playing the previous three seasons for the Soviet Red Army team.

"I would say that there's very few guys that their speed and their hands are at the same Mach level," LaFontaine said. "You look at Connor McDavid. You look at Pavel Bure. You look at Nathan MacKinnon. And you look at Alex. That's to name a few, but there are probably only a few that can make moves and do things with their hands and their feet are moving just as fast as their hands, that they're in sync like that at the highest level. Very rare."

Mogilny's adjustment to the NHL game took some time.

He had 43 points (15 goals, 28 assists) in 65 games in 1989-90. He scored 30 goals and had 64 points in 62 games in 1990-91.

LaFontaine arrived in Buffalo three weeks into the 1991-92 season via a trade with the New York Islanders on Oct. 25, 1991. Mogilny's production boomed to 39 goals and 84 points in 67 games in 1991-92.

Then, as their chemistry grew, Mogilny had one of the greatest seasons in NHL history, scoring 76 goals and putting up 127 points in 77 games in 1992-93.

Only Wayne Gretzky (twice), Brett Hull and Mario Lemieux have scored more goals in a single NHL season than Mogilny's 76 in 1992-93.

"I played with great players," LaFontaine said. "I had never played with a player that had that much talent and that much speed until I played with him."

A similar refrain came out of Vancouver, Toronto and New Jersey.

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After compiling an impressive 444 points (233 goals, 211 assists in 381 games across six seasons in Buffalo, the Sabres traded Mogilny to the Vancouver Canucks on July 8, 1995, allowing him to join Bure, his Red Army teammate, in the Pacific Northwest.

"That summer we acquired Alex, we were moving into Rogers Arena that year and it certainly captivated the market to have these two guys together," former Canucks center Trevor Linden said.

Bure was limited to 15 games in 1995-96, but Mogilny scored 55 goals and had 107 points in 79 games. He scored five short-handed goals after he had three in his six seasons in Buffalo.

"I get asked a lot of times who is the most talented player that I ever played with," Linden said. "I played on the '98 (Canadian) Olympic team, I played in the World Cup in '96, I played in the All-Star games, and I say that Alex Mogilny is the most talented player that I ever played with. Naturally gifted and talented. People are kind of surprised when I say that, but I really believe that his natural ability was as good as anyone's. He was a magician."

Linden said he could tell that Mogilny looked bored at times because his talent was so impressive that no one around him was close.

"I always say this, the greatest players, the truly greatest players, they always had a unique way about them," Linden said. "I say that as a compliment. If they all thought like I did they would be like me, just get the most out of their talent, applied themselves well and were good players. But the great players always look at things differently, have a different way of coming at things, think differently, think outside the box. That was Alex."

Mogilny had 308 points (139 goals, 169 assists) in 312 games with the Canucks before they traded him to the New Jersey Devils on March 14, 2000.

"We don't win the Cup if we don't get Alex Mogilny," former Devils general manager Lou Lamoriello said.

* * *

Mogilny joined a loaded Devils team that featured Martin Brodeur in net, Scott Stevens and Scott Niedermayer on defense, the 'A Line' of Patrik Elias, Petr Sykora and Jason Arnott, plus Gomez, Claude Lemieux and Bobby Holik up front.

They were 40-17-5 (eight ties) when Mogilny arrived March 14.

He played on a line with Gomez and Lemieux.

"I don't know if I was just being a rookie, but I was like, 'Hey, where do you want the puck?'" Gomez said. "You know, me passing the puck, 'Where do you want me to put it?' And he kind of looked at me, and the guy is so cool, and he said, 'Just put it wherever.' And he could tell I was kind of nervous talking to him, and I was like, 'No, seriously. If we have a 2-on-1, where do you want it?' That's just how much pride I took in passing. And he looked at me again and was like, 'No, seriously. Throw it wherever.' And I'm like, 'OK.'

"So we started practice, and I started feeding him one-timers or whatever and he was like, 'Throw it wherever you want.' And I was throwing it behind him, in front of him, and every shot was just, like, perfect. Then afterward he said to me, 'See, I told you. Just throw it anywhere.' I was like, 'Holy cow, this is awesome.' So I got a lot of assists just throwing it to 'Almo.'"

It helped, Lamoriello said, that Mogilny knew how Russian players like Slava Fetisov and Alexei Kasatonov had been treated by the Devils. Sergei Brylin and Sergei Nemchinov were on the Devils when Mogilny got to New Jersey.

There was an instant comfort that he felt.

"He just fit like a glove, but that was a tough team not to fit," Lamoriello said. "We couldn't have asked for any more out of him. He was just a pleasure to have on the team and in the organization. Boy, he could score."

The Devils won the Stanley Cup in 2000. Mogilny didn't dominate, with six points (three goals, three assists) in 12 regular-season games and seven points (four goals, three assists) in 23 Stanley Cup Playoff games. But he was a part of it, so dangerous that it made others around him better.

The next season, playing with Gomez and Brylin, he had 83 points (43 goals, 40 assists) in 75 games. New Jersey again reached the Stanley Cup Final, losing to the Colorado Avalanche in seven games.

"One of the most skilled players I ever played with," Stevens said of Mogilny.

* * *

Mogilny left New Jersey to sign with the Toronto Maple Leafs on July 3, 2001, reuniting with general manager Pat Quinn, who had the same role in Vancouver when Mogilny was acquired by the Canucks in 1995.

He scored his 400th NHL goal against the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim on Oct. 8, 2001.

He had 57 points (24 goals, 33 assists) in 66 games in 2001-02. The following season, Mogilny was put on a line with center Mats Sundin, and they ripped it up.

Mogilny led the Maple Leafs with 79 points (33 goals, 46 assists) in 73 games. His 79 points was tied for 15th in the League. Sundin had 72 points (37 goals, 35 assists).

"Of all the players I played with, including the national team with Peter Forsberg and Nicklas Lidstrom, and Joe Sakic (in Quebec), of all the players I played with, Alex was almost by far the most talented player I played with," Sundin said. "His level, I mean, I used to laugh when I'd think of Alex. If he was playing today he would score 60, 70 goals per season."

Hip problems limited Mogilny after 2002-03.

He played 37 games with Toronto in 2003-04, scoring eight goals and finishing with 30 points.

He went back to New Jersey after the work stoppage that canceled the 2004-05 season but had 25 points (12 goals, 13 assists) in 34 games. He finished his final professional season in the American Hockey League with the Albany River Rats.

Mogilny missed the 1,000-game milestone by 10 games, finishing with 990. He was 27 goals shy of 500. It took him 16 years to get into the Hockey Hall of Fame.

But from his defection and through every stop on his NHL journey teammates had the same feeling about him.

"He was the best player that I ever played with," LaFontaine said.

NHL.com senior writer Tom Gulitti and staff writer Mike Zeisberger contributed to this story