At 6-foot-4, 225 pounds, Andreychuk made his living battling for position and scoring goals from in front of the net. He ranks 14th in NHL history with 640 goals, including a League-record 274 on the power play, and also had 698 assists in 1,639 regular-season games. Before Monday, he was the only player eligible who had scored at least 600 goals in the NHL and was not in the Hockey Hall of Fame.
"Nobody starts their career thinking that they're going to be a Hall of Famer," Andreychuk said. "You just want to stay in the League, you want to help your team win, and after it's all done and you look at your numbers and you think that there's a chance and people start to talk about it. But at the same time, it's really out of your hands. I'm thankful this day came along for me and for my family, and whether it was this year or next year or 10 years from now didn't matter to us."
The Sabres' first-round pick (No. 16) in the 1982 NHL Draft, Andreychuk scored at least 20 goals 19 times and reached 30 goals nine times, 40 goals four times, and 50 goals in 1992-93 (NHL career-high 54 in 83 games with Buffalo and Toronto) and 1993-94 (53 in 83 games with Toronto).
"The back-to-back 50-goal seasons, the power-play record for goals, those are things that I look back on that it's an amazement to really think [about]," he said. "When I started in '82 and got the privilege of watching Gilbert Perreault score 500 goals, to think that I went by him, it's mind-boggling."