Rats in the Hall of Fame? Marchand, Perry and the pursuit of immortality
In the near future, the Hockey Hall of Fame is going to have a rat problem.
Incoming Board Chair Mike Gartner won’t need to call an exterminator to Brookfield Place in Toronto, though. These famous rats, Brad Marchand and Corey Perry, may get invited to infest the Hall’s celebrated plaque room in a few years.
With the careers of this divisive duo about to intersect in the Stanley Cup Final, the time is right to profile their accomplished, controversial hockey lives.
Marchand’s and Perry’s candidacies create a gauntlet of questions. Do rats make the Hall of Fame? What do their numbers say? Will a lifetime of cheap shots and dangerous plays keep them out? We’re burrowing into the future Hall of Fame cases of a pair of veteran pests and answering the tough questions ahead of their incoming championship clash.
🐀 Hall of Fame Rats
The Hockey Hall of Fame is full of talent that lived on the edge. Chris Pronger, Scott Stevens, Mark Messier, Gordie Howe, to name a few. Pre-NHL inductee Harry Westwick’s nickname actually was ‘Rat.’ But these ruthless stars thrived in eras where violence was a more accepted part of the sport’s fabric. None embraced the shameless rat essence as an identity like Marchand or Perry.
Searching for past precedent, I found only two bona fide rats in the last 40 years of inductees scratching at the Hall’s floorboards:
- Bobby Clarke (1987): Can a three-time MVP be a rat? Physically unimpressive and afflicted with type 1 diabetes, Clarke was a warrior — an elite combination of playmaking, defensive prowess, and nastiness. Make no mistake though, Clarke was dirty. He famously broke Soviet star Valeri Kharlamov’s ankle with a two-handed slash in the Summit Series. Clarke was an easy first-ballot choice.
- Dino Ciccarelli (2010): The famously tenacious Ciccarelli scored 608 career goals — ninth all-time when he retired. But he received almost no award consideration as his career totals were inflated from the offensive heyday of his prime. Ciccarelli was convicted of assault and sentenced to a day in jail for a stick-swinging incident in 1988. He was ultimately passed over eight times by the Selection Committee.
If Ciccarelli is our de facto lab rat, his long wait may be telling. But it’s clear that Marchand, 37, and Perry, 40, would have limited company in the modern history of rodents in the Hall’s walls. Looking to the next decade of potential inductees, there simply aren’t a lot of superstars that flagrantly agitate in today’s NHL. These two millennial rats are a unique species.
🐀 The Numbers
Career Scoring
Rat Race: We’re using era adjusted scoring to neutralize the pests’ career stats. Each played their primes in mediocre to downright stifling offensive climates — these stats scale everyone to a level playing field.
Marchand’s adjusted rate stats are extremely impressive, particularly for a player long anchored to a defensively responsible team and line. His 34-goal pace is tied for 23rd among 62 modern Hall of Fame forwards — slightly ahead of Guy Lafleur over a nearly identical number of games. Yes, really. Marchand’s 77-point pace is 28th. Both rates figure to drop a tick depending on how long Marchand soldiers on, but it’s easily Hall of Fame efficiency. His totals are not jaw dropping but solid for a late bloomer.
For ‘Scorey Perry,’ era adjustments bump him to an even 500 goals (from 448) and nudge him over the 1,000-point threshold (from 935). In real time, Perry will fall well short of both marks — likely the biggest deterrent to his case. But we can see that in a neutral era without shortened lockout and pandemic schedules, he’d have approached both marks. It’s per-game stats where Perry is a drowned rat. His 82-game point pace (58) tops only defensive maestro Bob Gainey (28) and dubious choices Clark Gillies (48) and Guy Carbonneau (35) among 62 post-expansion forward inductees.
Hall of Fame worthiness (out of 5):
Marchand 🧀🧀🧀 1/2
Perry 🧀🧀
Peak Performance
Rat Race: We’ll deploy the High Noon system — my version of the world golf rankings for NHL players. It identifies a player’s league-wide rank by year and how high they peaked (their ‘High Noon’).
Unlike his opponents, High Noon loves Marchand. He grades out among the six best forwards in the NHL spanning the years 2017 to 2022. His three appearances in the top-three tie him with Joe Sakic and Brett Hull, one more than both Jarome Iginla and Sergei Fedorov.
Despite winning the 2010-11 Hart Trophy, that was late-season lightning in a bottle for Perry — not a player consistently among the very best in the league. In his 19 other seasons, he earned MVP votes only one other time (a 13th-place finish). In all, Perry had five years in the top 12, his High Noon peaking as the #8 forward in the NHL. It’s not a dagger — 11 modern Hall of Fame forwards never cracked top-10 status — but it does little to help his candidacy.
Hall of Fame worthiness (out of 5):
Marchand 🧀🧀🧀🧀
Perry 🧀🧀
Overall Body of Work
Rat Race: PPS, my comprehensive Hall of Fame worthiness metric, provides us with a complete career picture. A player’s score measures values for career (productivity), pace (efficiency), peak (best seven seasons), plus bonuses for playoffs, international play, and award shares.
Marchand shreds the PPS standard (277 vs. 219), up from 271 a year ago after a solid 36-year-old season and deep playoff run. While the 2025 update won’t be run until the Class of 2025 is unveiled on June 24th, Marchand has passed Marian Hossa (272) and Frank Mahovlich (274), scurrying inside the top 40 forwards of all-time.
At 227, Perry edges the standard. He’s a borderline candidate — a score within 15 of the standard in either direction. A second Cup, however, moves Perry to 232, just shy of the Qualified tier. His challenge? 10 eligible forwards currently have a higher PPS and are waiting for a call: John LeClair (261); Keith Tkachuk (259); Alexander Mogilny (259); Theo Fleury (258); Patrik Elias (247); Henrik Zetterberg (242); Ziggy Palffy (237); Peter Bondra (231); Dany Heatley (228); and Marian Gaborik (228).
Hall of Fame worthiness (out of 5):
Marchand 🧀🧀🧀🧀 1/2
Perry 🧀🧀🧀
🐀 The Rat Sheet
Both Marchand and Perry have made careers of orchestrating chaos and theatrics. The WWE sideshow act may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but it’s effective and they’re good at it. These skills have helped them outlast their expiry dates as athletes. So, we’re going to only focus on the factual incidents that received discipline or were objectively stains on the pair’s legacies.
Brad Marchand (“Little Ball of Hate”):
- Most suspensions in NHL history (eight): elbowing (twice); clipping/low-bridge hits (twice); slew-footing (twice); spearing; high-sticking. His eighth suspension in 2022 passed Pronger’s ‘record’ of seven.
- Five additional incidents resulting in fines: slew-footing; roughing; tripping; diving; cross-checking
- Per Sportsnet Stats, Marchand has been suspended 28 games, forfeiting more than $1.4 million in salary
- Two face-licking incidents in the 2018 playoffs
- Voted “Dirtiest Player in the League” by a 2020 survey of 392 of his peers by The Athletic
Corey Perry (“The Worm”):
- January 2009: Late elbow to the face of Claude Giroux (four-game suspension)
- March 2013: Elbow to the face of Jason Zucker (four-game suspension)
- January 2020: Late elbow to the head of Ryan Ellis in the Winter Classic (five-game suspension) and the famously lonely walk back to the Cotton Bowl locker room
- November 2023: After being signed as a veteran leader for the rebuilding Blackhawks, Perry’s contract was terminated for violating policies “intended to promote professional and safe work environments.” The incident led to a host of heinous rumors and distractions. Perry later apologized and sought help for substance abuse, while the details of the matter remain murky.
Aside from the public record, both have a long history of countless cheap shots, predatory hits, dangerous plays that crossed the line, instigating fights but not dropping the gloves, and running goalies. While it’s part of their games, there are extensive YouTube collections curating their antics, an online rat’s nest of ugliness.
🐀 Closing the Rat Trap
“I have done things that have stepped over that line, and I’ve paid the price for it… Even if that means being hated. Even if it means carrying around some baggage… If I played the game any other way, you absolutely would not know my name. You wouldn’t care enough to hate me, because I wouldn’t be in the NHL.”
Brad Marchand, The Players’ Tribune
Marchand is clearly the better candidate overall. His neutralized scoring rates are exceptional and he played at a higher level for much longer than Perry. The former Bruins’ captain has scored at least 10 playoff points 10 different times — topped only by Messier (14 times), Wayne Gretzky (14) and Jean Beliveau (11).
Perry’s case is borderline. His MVP, three best-on-best international titles, and soon-to-be top-five career playoff game count, however, are exclusive, memorable résumé lines.
But will 14 members of an 18-person Selection Committee agree to induct such polarizing individuals? I believe both will get the sincere looks their careers warrant. Why? Despite the well-deserved hate around the league, let’s be honest: anyone would love to have these two rats in their locker room. Relentlessly dedicated to their crafts, neither has taken the easy road to success. The pair has earned more than $180 million combined and still taunt, grind, and endure net front abuse into their late 30s and early 40s as postseason mercenaries.
A rat problem at the Hall? No way. Marchand is a rat that should be in a tuxedo on stage soon. Perry’s case deserves serious consideration, but it may take a while to get to the end of the maze.
Visit adjustedhockey.com; data from Hockey-Reference.com