The Chicago Blackhawks were never going to retire everyone’s number. Whether it was their great players of the past — the likes of Steve Larmer and Doug Wilson — or the most recent ones who were part of multiple Stanley Cup runs, the team can only raise so many to the rafters.

Fans had been asking for years for the Blackhawks to figure out another way to honor those players. To be fair, the Blackhawks have been in talks for years about doing such a thing. With their centennial anniversary now arriving, they decided it was time to unveil their own Hall of Fame.

Fans, select media and Blackhawks alumni will have an equally weighted vote on two categories of players — Heritage and Modern — and a player from each category will be elected into the Blackhawks Hall of Fame annually.

With it being late August and still weeks away from real hockey to discuss again, we decided to rank the nominees for the first Blackhawks Hall of Fame class.

Heritage1. Steve Larmer

Scott Powers (1): No, it’s not getting your number retired, but it’d be significant for Larmer to be the first Heritage member inducted into the Blackhawks Hall of Fame. I will say, Charlie Gardiner would have been my vote here if he had been included on the ballot. He might be the most forgotten Blackhawks player.

Mark Lazerus (1): Larmer rocked. He belongs in the Hockey Hall of Fame and the United Center rafters.

2. Doug Wilson

Powers (2): A Norris Trophy and three other top-four finishes is pretty good.

Lazerus (2): Absolutely wild to me that a defenseman had 39 goals in 76 games the way Wilson did in 1981-82. He’s better known by younger fans for his tenure as Sharks general manager, but Wilson was one heck of a player.

3. Doug Bentley

Lazerus (3): When it comes to these old-timers who played an entirely different sport than the one we see today, all you can do is compare them to their contemporaries. And from 1942-1950, Bentley’s prime, he was second in the league with 421 points in 369 games, behind only the iconic Elmer Lach. (I have never heard of Elmer Lach.)

Powers (4): What’s incredible is that from 1943 to 1949, either Bentley or his brother Max finished in the top five in Hart voting.

4. Jeremy Roenick

Lazerus (6): Roenick’s seven full seasons in Chicago were spectacular. And as I said in a recent mailbag, he’s the first “heritage era” Blackhawk I’d put on the roster right now. Fabulous hockey player in his prime. But he spent most of his career in other teams’ jerseys. When you’re talking about a team Hall of Fame, that matters.

Powers (3): This was one of our larger discrepancies. For me, Roenick was at another level in his prime. His 1.14 points per game with the Blackhawks is also second only to Denis Savard’s 1.24.

Ed Belfour won two Vezina trophies while with the Blackhawks. (Jonathan Daniel / Getty Images)T5. Ed Belfour

Lazerus (5): Statistically, compared with his peers, Belfour’s numbers are surprisingly pedestrian (his .904 save percentage during his Hawks years was just 12th in the league over that time), but anyone who watched Belfour play knows how great he was.

Powers (5): You could argue he should be higher on the list with two Vezinas during his time with the Blackhawks.

T5. Bill Mosienko

Powers (6): Mosienko’s hat trick in 21 seconds is an unbelievable story.

Lazerus (4): Small guy, big-time player.

7. Dennis Hull

Powers (7): I didn’t realize how many categories Hull is in the top 10 in franchise history.

Lazerus (9): A remarkably consistent producer for 13 seasons in Chicago. Must have galled him to be called “The Silver Jet,” though. I hated when my older brother’s friends called me “Little Laz.”

8. Troy Murray

Powers (9): Murray scored 45 goals and won the Selke in the 1985-86 season.

Lazerus (8): Funny that he had to go off offensively to win the award for best defensive forward. Murray was always a great two-way player. Had a bit of Marián Hossa in him.

T9. Johnny Gottselig

Powers (8): Gottselig was one of the best players on the Blackhawks’ first two Stanley Cup champions.

Lazerus (10): Fun fact: He was the second Russian-born player in NHL history. No, Mike Smith didn’t draft him.

T9. Pit Martin

Lazerus (7): An early adopter of the hockey helmet and a member of the famed MPH line with Dennis Hull and Jim Pappin in the 1970s.

Powers (11): I could probably be convinced I’m wrong about good old Pit. I just didn’t feel like the stats warranted higher.

11. Mush March

Lazerus (11): I genuinely love that this ballot pits Mush March against Jeremy Roenick. What a ludicrous exercise and impossible task this is.

Powers (10): The 5-foot-5 March played all 761 of his NHL games with the Blackhawks.

Dirk Graham was the Blackhawks’ captain for six seasons during the 1990s. (AP Photo / Charles Bennett)12. Dirk Graham

Lazerus (12): Graham’s mustache is a first-ballot Hall of Famer.

Powers (12): Jonathan Toews, Murray and Graham are the only Blackhawks to ever win the Selke. Graham also scored 10 shorthanded goals in a single season.

13. Cliff Koroll

Lazerus (13): We’re really getting into the “it’s an honor to be nominated” stage here.

Powers (13): Koroll played his whole 814-game career with the Blackhawks and settled in the Chicago area.

T14. Chico Maki

Powers (14): It doesn’t feel like any of the guys near the end of this list will ever get in.

Lazerus (15): I’d love to see Blackhawks fans organize a “John Scott to the All-Star Game”-like movement and get one of these longtime, lifelong workaday Blackhawks in ahead of some of the flashier names.

T14. Eric Nesterenko

Powers (15): Nesterenko played with the Blackhawks until he was 40.

Lazerus (14): Thanks for playing, Eric.

Duncan Keith will be inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in November and will likely end up in the Blackhawks Hall of Fame shortly after. (Bruce Bennett / Getty Images)Modern1. Duncan Keith

Lazerus (1): Toews and Patrick Kane were the faces of the franchise for the Blackhawks’ golden era, but Duncan Keith was the best player on the team. I bet you Toews and Kane would say the same. A first-ballot Hall of Famer and two-time Norris Trophy winner who is somehow still underrated in the larger hockey world.

Powers (2): Keith is the obvious choice, but he’s undoubtedly going to have his number retired in the next couple of years, making him an automatic inductee. For that reason, I went with Patrick Sharp. He wasn’t the best player on those teams, but he was there before things began to turn and played such a key role in all those Cup championships.

2. Patrick Sharp

Lazerus (3): Sharp never met a shot he didn’t take, but people sleep on how complete a player he was. His 200-foot game often rivaled that of Toews and Hossa.

Powers (1): I’m curious how long Sharp will actually have to wait to be inducted into this.

3. Niklas Hjalmarsson

Lazerus (2): Perhaps the best defensive defenseman of the modern era, both via the eye test and the analytics. And he did it while playing his off side the entire time.

Powers (3): Hjalmarsson felt like he got his due by the end of his career.

4. Brent Seabrook

Lazerus (4): The emotional heartbeat of the team and everybody’s obnoxious-but-endearing big brother. A pretty damn good hockey player, too.

Powers (4): I know we voted him fourth, but he probably gets in next, right?

Corey Crawford had a .932 save percentage during the 2013 Stanley Cup-winning run and .924 in 2015.5. Corey Crawford

Powers (5): It’s too bad his career got cut short due to injuries.

Lazerus (5): Never mind the Blackhawks Hall of Fame. You can make a decent case that he belongs in the Hockey Hall of Fame — a case I made a couple of years ago.

6. Tony Amonte

Powers (6): It’s going to be challenging for anyone outside those recent Cup teams to get in. Amonte will probably have to wait until he falls into the heritage category.

Lazerus (6): He just sneaks in under the “modern” criteria because his last Blackhawks season was 2001-02, but he might have had better luck with the “heritage” group. Amonte was ninth in the NHL in goals during his eight seasons with Chicago.

7. Andrew Shaw

Powers (8): Shaw was a key role player on the second two Cup teams, but I just didn’t think he should have been ahead of Éric Dazé.

Lazerus (7): Shaw might not have been as talented as some of the guys below him on this list, but he played a very important role on two Stanley Cup winners. That’s a heck of a lot more than the rest of these guys can say.

8. Éric Dazé

Lazerus (9): You still see No. 55 jerseys around the United Center on game day. Dazé had a very nice career on some truly awful teams, with just one playoff appearance in his last eight seasons. Imagine where those Blackhawks teams would have been without him.

Powers (7): What could he have done if he had stayed healthy?

Brian Campbell averaged 23-plus minutes during the Blackhawks’ 2009-10 season. (Caylor Arnold / USA TODAY).9. Brian Campbell

Powers (9): Campbell was a significant signing for the organization and was a heck of a player, but this sort of felt like a kind gesture to him. He played just four seasons in Chicago.

Lazerus (8): And just three of those seasons came in his prime. Excellent player. His signing was a watershed moment for the franchise. But come on.

10. Alexei Zhamnov

Powers (10): Zhamnov had a solid career, but the Blackhawks probably could have trimmed this ballot.

Lazerus (10): Solid player. Productive, too. Has no chance of getting into this Hall of Fame in the next decade.

11. Steve Sullivan

Powers (11): In Sullivan’s 34-goal season, he scored more shorthanded goals (8) than power-play goals (6). That’s all I got.

Lazerus (11): Really does feel like they were straining to get to 12 guys on the ballot here.

12. Jocelyn Thibault

Lazerus (12): Uh…

Powers (12): See you in September!

(Top photo of Steve Larmer: Lou Capozzola / USA Today Network)