Toronto Maple Leafs Alumni Gary Roberts Should be in the Hall of Fame

Gary Roberts deserves to be in the Hockey Hall of Fame. The Toronto Maple Leafs luminary has been wrongfully passed over.

The Toronto Maple Leafs have had many former players and builders inducted into the Hall of Fame. It’s a franchise with a rich history. The Hall and its voters have unfortunately missed an important Leafs alumni who should enter the fraternity, Gary Roberts.

In November this year, the Hall of Fame will grow by six new members. Each of whom is deserving to be immortalised. Hayley Wickenheiser, Guy Carbonneau, Sergei Zubov, and Václav Nedomanský will all enter as players. Jim Rutherford and the former Boston College coach Jerry York will also enter as builders. Roberts didn’t make the cut, but should have already been inducted.

Roberts played four seasons in blue and white, from 2000 to 2004. In his best season with the team, his first, he scored 29 goals and added 24 helpers. He also had 109 penalty minutes. It was far from his best career season, which came while he was a member of the Calgary Flames.

Gary Roberts and the Hall of Fame

In 1991-1992 Roberts potted 53 goals and 37 assists. It was his first and only time reaching the 50 goal plateau in the NHL though he tallied 41 goals two years later. He also eclipsed the 30-goal mark twice, with a 38 and 39 goal season.

Roberts played a total of 21 seasons. He entered the NHL at age 20 and exited at 42. For his career, he amassed an impressive 910 points. They came from 438 goals and 472 assists in 1224 games. Though the bulk of that production came as a ten-year player for the Flames, 157 of his points came while with the Toronto Maple Leafs.

Roberts’ point total puts him at 111th on the all-time scoring list in the NHL, only five points behind arguably the best defenceman to ever play the game, Bobby Orr. His 910 points are also greater than Toronto Maple Leafs Legend and Hall of Fame right winger George Armstrong. Armstrong had 713 points in 1188 games.

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Roberts also sits on other lists. He ranks 102nd in total games played in the league and 67th in goals scored. He is even 19th all-time in penalty minutes (2560), with just two Hall of Fame players ahead of him, Chris Chelios (2891) and Scott Stevens (2785).

Roberts has also been decorated with a successful career. He played in three All-Star Games, won the Bill Masterton Memorial Trophy in 1996 and the Stanley Cup in 1989 with the Flames. Roberts also had an unreal shooting percentage.

For his career, he scored on 18.45-percent of his goals. That’s even better than Wayne Gretzky, who had a shooting percentage of 17.57. For comparison’s sake, Alexander Ovechkin, a natural goal scorer, has a career shooting percentage of 12.6.

If Roberts playing career and totals aren’t impressive enough, he could also be considered in the builder’s category. He could be the very first person inducted for revolutionizing high-performance training and sports nutrition in the game.

Roberts has trained some of the best athletes in the sport, starting with Steven Stamkos. The dedication to fitness by hockey players existed before Roberts started his business, Gary Roberts High Performance Training, but Roberts helped refine more serious regimens to help elite athletes reach beyond their expected potentials.

That is why Roberts was sought out to train players like Connor McDavid, Mark Scheifele, Jeff Skinner, and James Neal among other NHLers and aspiring professional players. His methods have helped these athletes transform their games.

Already in the Whitby Sports Hall of Fame, inducted in 2010, recognition for his work is unfinished. Whether it’s as a player or a builder, the case should be strong enough for Roberts to be one of the next people inducted in the Hockey Hall of Fame.