AHL alumni Bergeron, Price, Rinne and Burke enter Hockey Hall of Fame
The Hall’s 2026 class puts the AHL pipeline front and center: Bergeron, Price, Rinne and Burke all passed through it on the way to hockey immortality.
The AHL did not just send four more names to the Hockey Hall of Fame. It got another hard-numbered reminder of why the league matters: nearly 90 percent of today’s NHL players are AHL graduates, and more than 130 Hockey Hall of Fame honorees spent time in the league on the way to hockey immortality.
Patrice Bergeron, Carey Price, Pekka Rinne and Brian Burke are part of the Hall’s 2026 class, announced Monday in Toronto after the selection committee met in the city. The full class also includes Keith Tkachuk and Cindy Curley, with Burke the lone Builder and the others chosen in the Players category. The induction celebration is set for Monday, Nov. 9, 2026, in Toronto, a date that will put the AHL’s development track back on the sport’s biggest stage.
Bergeron is the cleanest AHL case in the group and the one that best captures the league’s value. As a 19-year-old, he spent the 2004-05 season with Providence and put up 21 goals and 40 assists for 61 points in 68 games. He then added 12 points in 16 playoff games as the Bruins reached the Eastern Conference Finals, and he also skated in the AHL All-Star Classic. From there, Bergeron built a Hall-of-Fame résumé in Boston: 1,294 NHL regular-season games, all with the Bruins, 427 goals, 613 assists and 1,040 points. He was elected in his first year of eligibility, and Bruins coach Claude Julien called the selection “a no-brainer,” adding that Bergeron was a complete player.
Price and Rinne show the other side of the AHL bargain: elite goaltending that becomes franchise-defining in the NHL. Price joined Hamilton late in the 2007-08 season and helped the Bulldogs win their first Calder Cup championship, then claimed the Jack A. Butterfield Trophy as playoff MVP. Rinne tied for second in the AHL with 30 regular-season wins in 2005-06, then posted 10 postseason wins, including three shutouts, to help Milwaukee reach the 2006 Calder Cup Final.
Burke’s path was different, but it still runs through the same pipeline. He played one full AHL season with the Maine Mariners and helped them win a Calder Cup championship before moving into a long NHL executive career and later serving as Executive Director of the Professional Women’s Hockey League Players Association. For the AHL, his selection is a reminder that the league shapes builders too, not just stars.
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