The Hockey Hall of Fame announced the 2013 inductees on Tuesday afternoon and they included two players New York hockey fans know very well.
Former Devils’ captain Scott Niedermayer will be enshrined, as will former Rangers’ and Devils’ forward Brendan Shanahan. Rounding out the players’ group was the oldest first-ballot Hall of Famer, 51-year-old Chris Chelios.
Joining them in the builders group are Fred Shero – who won two Stanley Cups with the Flyers in 1974 and 1975, and coached the Rangers for two and a half seasons – and women’s hockey great Geraldine Heaney.
The voting was done by the Hall’s 18-member selection committee and the induction ceremony will take place Nov. 11 in Toronto.
Niedermayer was the first-round draft pick (No. 3 overall) of the Devils in 1991, and led them to three Stanley Cups in 1995, 2000 and 2003. He then left to go captain the Ducks to their only title in 2007, winning the Conn Smythe in the process. He is the only player to win every major North American and International competition.
This was the second year on the ballot for Shanahan, who is now the NHL’s czar of discipline. With a strong class last year and an annual limit of four inductees, Shanahan had to wait his turn. He started his career as the No. 2-overall pick of the Devils in 1987, and retired as a member of the Devils after the 2008-09 season, which followed a two-year stint with the Rangers. Yet Shanahan’s legacy mostly resides in Detroit, where he won three Stanley Cups with the Red Wings (1997, 1998, 2002) and scored most of his 656 goals, which places his 13th on the all-time list. He is also 13th all time in games played with 1,524 and 25th in points with 1,354.
Chelios had a long an illustrious career, and became the second oldest player behind just Gordie Howe to play a NHL game when he called up by the Thrashers in 2009-10. He won the Stanley Cup three times (1986 with Montreal, 2002 and 2008 with Detroit) as well as the Norris Trophy three times (1989, 1993, 1996). He played the fifth most games all time (1,651), which is the most among defenseman and most among American-born players, finishing with 948 points.
Some notables missing the cut were Eric Lindros, Jeremy Roenick (who retweeted a picture of a naked woman on Monday), Rob Blake, Keith Tkachuck and Alexander Mogilny.
bcyrgalis@nypost.com