TORONTO (AP) – Ray Bourque was a workhorse who did it all. Paul Coffey would fly up the ice with the puck. Larry Murphy led power plays like few others.

The three defensemen receive their sport’s ultimate honor Monday night when they are inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame. Longtime executive Cliff Fletcher also enters in the builders’ category.

Bourque played for 22 NHL seasons. Coffey and Murphy played 21 each until their retirements three years ago.

“All three of them could pass the puck just unbelievable,” former NHL star Wendel Clark recalled. “Ray, in Boston, it seemed like he played the whole game. He could do absolutely everything. Paul Coffey was probably one of the best skaters to ever play the game. He could skate effortlessly. Larry quarterbacked everything.” Bourque is first (1,579), Coffey second (1,531) and Murphy fifth (1,216) in points by a defenseman. Bourque also holds the records for most goals (410) and assists (1,169) by a defenseman.

Bourque, a five-time Norris Trophy winner, spent all his career in Boston until he capped it by winning the Stanley Cup with Colorado in his final season.

“Whatever his team needed, he’d do it, whether it was offensively or defensively,” said Dale Hawerchuk, a Hall of Famer who, like Clark, was frustrated many times by the three defensemen.

Coffey won three Stanley Cups in Edmonton and one in Pittsburgh. His 48 goals in 1985-86 are the most by a defenseman in one season.

and that year he set the record for longest consecutive-games points streak by a defenseman (28). He won the Norris Trophy three times.

“Coffey was a great skater with great speed – effortless,” Hawerchuk said. “He was a constant offensive threat.”

Murphy earned two championship rings with Pittsburgh and two more with Detroit. The records he set in 1980-81 for rookie defensemen – most assists (60) and most points (76) – still stand.

“Larry Murphy was crafty – very smart, very intelligent,” says Hawerchuk, who was inducted in 2001. “You didn’t see too many defensemen who saw the ice better than he did.”

The all-star weekend would have included the introductions of Bourque, Coffey, Murphy and Fletcher at a Boston-Toronto NHL game Saturday night at Air Canada Centre, but the lockout wiped out that part of the festivities. The three skated in the Legends Classic before 15,000 fans Saturday when hall blazers were presented to the four new members.

“It would have been great had the Maple Leafs been playing the Bruins,” Bourque said. “We’d have been part of that. But I think the organizers did a great job in terms of having the Legends game, and the ceremony before that game was very special.”

AP-ES-11-07-04 1252EST