Pavelski, Gomez, Parise among 5 elected to U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame

Joe Pavelski, one of eight United States-born players to play at least 1,300 NHL games, was among five elected to the U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame Class of 2025, USA Hockey announced Wednesday.

Scott Gomez, the first Latino to win the Calder Trophy voted as NHL rookie of the year and a two-time Stanley Cup champion; Zach Parise, who played more than 1,250 games with four teams over 19 NHL seasons; Tara Mounsey, an Olympic gold medalist and standout women's hockey player at Brown University; and Bruce Bennett, one of the preeminent photographers in hockey for more than 50 years, will also be honored at the dinner and ceremony in St. Paul, Minnesota, on Dec. 10.

The Lester Patrick Trophy, awarded annually for outstanding service to hockey in the U.S., will also be presented on that date as well.

Pavelski had 1,068 points (476 goals, 592 assists) in 1,332 regular-season games for the Dallas Stars and San Jose Sharks. His teams reached the Stanley Cup Playoffs in 16 of his 18 seasons, and his 74 goals in 201 playoff games (143 points) are the most by a United States-born player.

The fact he scored many of his goals on tips and deflections was by no accident.

"I guess the tipping side was something that was fun," Pavelski said Wednesday. "Brent Burns was [in San Jose] and he loved to shoot pucks. You'd never get a guy to shoot you 200 pucks in a row, except Brent. And through all those reps, we kind of created a pretty sweet little chemistry.

"Whether it needed to be hard, soft ... he delivered a puck that helped that part of the game grow a little bit and kind of gave you that confidence. It just kind of snowballs from there."

Born in Plover, Wisconsin, Pavelski was selected by the Sharks in the seventh round (No. 205) of the 2003 NHL Draft. He played 13 seasons for San Jose, ranking second in franchise history in goals (355), third in points (761) and games (1,104), and fourth in assists (406). Pavelski was captain from 2015-19 and had 100 points (48 goals, 52 assists) in 134 playoff games to help the Sharks qualify for the postseason 12 times including the 2016 Stanley Cup Final, a six-game loss to the Pittsburgh Penguins.

In five seasons with Dallas, Pavelski had 307 points (121 goals, 186 assists), including an NHL career-high 81 points (27 goals, 54 assists) in 2021-22. He missed only two games in his five seasons and led the Stars with 13 goals in 27 games when they advanced to the 2020 Final, where they lost to the Tampa Bay Lightning in six games.

Pavelski won a silver medal at the 2010 Vancouver Olympics and was Team USA captain at the World Cup of Hockey 2016.

Gomez had 756 points (181 goals, 575 assists) in 1,079 games for the New Jersey Devils, New York Rangers, Montreal Canadiens, Sharks, Florida Panthers, St. Louis Blues and Ottawa Senators. The Anchorage, Alaska, native is of Mexican-Colombian decent and was selected by the Devils in the first round (No. 27) of the 1997 NHL Draft.

A member of the Alaska Sports Hall of Fame, Gomez will enter his first season as coach of the Chicago Steel in the United States Hockey League. He won the 2000 Calder Trophy after scoring 19 goals and 51 assists in 82 games. The two-time NHL All Star helped New Jersey win the Stanley Cup in 2000 and 2003 and had 101 points (29 goals, 72 assists) in 149 playoff games, retiring in 2016 after 16 NHL seasons.

He cites Randy McKay, Ken Daneyko, Bobby Holik and Jay Pandolfo among his big influences while beginning his NHL career.

"And it starts from the top with Mr. Lou Lamoriello ... I mean, the way he ran the organization," Gomez said. "You learn right away what it takes, what commitment is all about. (Assistant coaches) Larry Robinson and Slava Fetisov ... they just took it to another level. They cared and nurtured you. They showed you how to be a pro. I'm here right now because of all those guys."

Parise played 1,254 NHL regular-season games and 122 postseason games for the Devils, Minnesota Wild, New York Islanders and Colorado Avalanche. The Minneapolis, Minnesota, native left New Jersey, which chose him in the first round (No. 17) of the 2003 NHL Draft, after seven seasons to sign with his hometown Wild. He had 83 points (39 goals, 44 assists) in 122 playoff games, reaching the postseason 15 times. The closest Parise came to winning the Stanley Cup was in 2012, when New Jersey lost the Final in six games to the Los Angeles Kings.

Internationally, Parise won gold at the 2002 IIHF Under-18 World Championship and was a member of the 2004 U.S. National Junior Team that won the country's first gold medal at the IIHF World Junior Championship. He also won silver at the 2010 Olympics.

"It's amazing how [the World Juniors] has grown just in publicity in the United States, which is great because you're looking at the future stars of the NHL," Parise said. "We knew we had a good squad going in, but I think for us it's a little bit of a feather in the cap that we were able to be the first United States team to win it."

Mounsey, a native of Concord, New Hampshire, played a key role for the team that won the gold medal in women's ice hockey for the first time at the 1998 Nagano Olympics. Considered by many to be the finest offensive defenseman in women's hockey, Mounsey had at least one point in five of the six games (two goals, four assists). She also had a team-best seven assists in five games to help the U.S. earn silver at the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics. She played high school hockey on the boys' team at Concord High School and was named the 1996 New Hampshire Class-L Player of the Year -- among boys and girls.

"I was hopeful to become a part of the '98 Olympic team," Mounsey said. "They had been talking about it when I was 13-, 14-years-old and I had entered into the U-14 track. I got to go to a couple of camps in Lake Placid, so it was already one of my goals and I'm just so thrilled and honored that it was able to come to fruition."

As a freshman in 1996-97, Mounsey helped Brown go 28-2-1 and was honored as the Ivy League and ECAC Hockey Rookie of the Year. She was named one of 10 candidates in 1999 and one of four finalists in 2000 for The Patty Kazmaier Memorial Award, presented annually to the top women's intercollegiate varsity ice hockey player in the NCAA. Now an orthopedic practitioner at New England Baptist Hospital, Mounsey was inducted into the Brown Athletic Hall of Fame in 2011. She finished her college career with 118 points (48 goals, 70 assists) in 78 games.

Bennett was team photographer for the Islanders from 1982 to 2004, when he sold his company, Bruce Bennett Studios, to Getty Images. He's the world's most prolific hockey photographer, having shot more than 5,300 NHL games and six Winter Olympics, with a seventh upcoming at the Olympic Winter Games Milano Cortina 2026. Bennett also worked 45 Stanley Cup Finals, and more than 470 international games.

Born in Brooklyn, New York, Bennett got his start in hockey photography shooting NHL contests at Madison Square Garden and Nassau Coliseum in 1974. Two years later, he shot his first Stanley Cup Final between the Canadiens and Philadelphia Flyers. He's captured images in 58 different NHL venues, and his complete archive includes more than 2.5 million images.

"It's those historic moments, the individual, isolated action that we sell so many images of throughout the years," Bennett said. "It's the ones that freeze a moment in time that people look back and go, 'I remember. I was there watching it on television.' Wayne Gretzky's record breakers, for instance, or Alex Ovechkin's record breaker last season. Those are images that stand the test of time because people always look back at those and go, 'I remember that moment.'"