Rozner: When does Doug Wilson get his HOF plaque?

Doug Wilson has had a pretty fine career as an NHL executive.

The second-longest tenured GM in the NHL - only Nashville's David Poile has been in the job longer - the former Blackhawks defenseman worked his way up through the San Jose franchise and took over as boss in 2003.

The Sharks have made the playoffs every year but one under Wilson and they've been to five conference finals, currently battling St. Louis for a chance to go back to the Stanley Cup Final.

The hope here is the job he's done will garner him some attention.

No, not as a GM, but instead remind people around the league of what he did as a player, a terrific career that has largely gone unnoticed since he retired in 1993.

It was a Hall of Fame career that has not resulted in a Hall of Fame election, something that makes no more sense today than it did 20 years ago.

When Wilson retired after 14 years with the Hawks and two with San Jose, he was 61st all-time in points (827) - through the first 76 years of the NHL.

At that time, there were only four defensemen ahead of him and all are in the Hall of Fame today. Their names are Bobby Orr, Denis Potvin, Ray Bourque and Paul Coffey.

At the time, Wilson was 40th all-time in assists (590). The same four defensemen were the only ones ahead of him on that list.

There were only five defensemen ahead of him in goals (237), including Phil Housley, and all five are in the Hall of Fame.

At the time, only Potvin and Bourque had played more games than Wilson (1,024).

There's no argument here with any of the five. Orr needs no explanation as perhaps the greatest player in history. Potvin had the game and the rings. Bourque was extraordinary. And Housley was a great offensive player.

But with the exception of Orr, not one of them can claim to have been a better defensive defenseman, and Housley to this day hasn't met his own goaltender. No offense to a Hall of Famer, but defense was optional.

Sure, Wilson had the cannon and won a Norris Trophy based on a 39-goal season in 1981-82, and he was a brilliant passer who participated in one of the NHL's best ever power plays, but defensively there have been few better in the history of the game.

Hockey was a different game in Wilson's era. The clutch-and-grab was encouraged - Denis Savard would average 130 points today - and the game was violent, the hitting nonstop.

Beating Wilson 1-on-1 simply did not happen. And he did it clean.

So why isn't he in the Hall of Fame?

Remember that the NHL was a Mickey Mouse league run by the likes of John Ziegler, who's in the Hall of Fame, and Gil Stein, who got himself inducted into the Hall while league president, later removed when it was determined that he engineered his own election after changing the rules and manipulating the system.

But the league was really run by Bill Wirtz, and Wirtz was closely aligned with Alan Eagleson and Bob Pulford, all of them sticking by one another to the very end.

As president of the NHLPA, it was Wilson who led the charge to remove Eagleson, the man with massive conflicts of interest as players association director, who stole from players, got in bed with owners and was eventually jailed for fraud and embezzlement.

But in the process of trying to form a legitimate NHLPA, Wilson was blackballed. There's no other explanation for his exclusion from the Hall of Fame.

That was a long time ago, but in the intervening 25 years his career has been forgotten by the Hall of Fame, which has enshrined much less accomplished players who had the benefit of big hockey markets and better teams.

It wasn't Wilson's fault that the Hawks didn't matter more in Chicago in the 1980s, that they didn't have better goaltending when they ran into Edmonton.

But he played with Orr, roomed with Stan Mikita, won a Norris, won a Canada Cup, established a legitimate NHLPA, comported himself in a first-class manner and was the marquee player as the Sharks were born, creating a hockey market where there wasn't one.

More important than any of that, he was a tremendous NHL defensemen.

Doug Wilson's done a lot for the game of hockey. It's well past time for the game to do right by him.