Scoring 50 goals in one season is one of the most celebrated individual achievements in the National Hockey League (NHL).[1] In 1944–45, Maurice Richard became the first player to score 50 goals in a season. Bernie Geoffrion became the second player to reach the milestone 16 years later in 1960–61. Fifty-goal seasons increased in frequency during the 1970s and 1980s as the schedule was extended to 80 games and offense increased across the league. By 1980, it had been reached 24 times in NHL history; the plateau was reached 76 times in the 1980s alone.
Wayne Gretzky scored his 50th goal in his 39th game in 1981–82, the fastest any player has done so. He also shares the record for most 50-goal seasons with Mike Bossy and Alexander Ovechkin, each having reached the milestone nine times in their careers. A record fourteen players exceeded 50 goals in 1992–93, when the schedule was extended to 84 games. After this, offence declined across the league and the schedule was reduced back to the present 82 games, and with these developments the number of players to reach the total declined.
Since 1969–70, there have been four completed 82-game NHL seasons (the first being 1998–99) in which no player scored fifty goals, in addition to no player scoring fifty goals in any of the four seasons of play shortened by lockouts or the COVID-19 pandemic.
As of completion of the 2023–24 season, 99 different players have scored 50 goals in an NHL season one or more times in their career, doing so a combined 209 times.
History
Joe Malone scored 44 goals for the Montreal Canadiens in the NHL's inaugural season of 1917–18—a season with a twenty-game schedule. It was a record that stood nearly 30 years.[2] The introduction of the centre red line and permission of forward passing out of the defensive zone in 1943 increased scoring;[3] six players scored 30 goals in 1943–44, the first time in league history so many players reached that total in one season.[4] Maurice Richard averaged a goal per game for Montreal in 1944–45 and surpassed Malone's record of 44 late in the season.[5] He was as obsessed with reaching the 50-goal mark as his opponents were with preventing it. Richard faced opponents who repeatedly elbowed, hooked and held him in an effort to prevent him from reaching 50.[2] As a result, he scored only seven goals in his final 13 games.[6] Richard scored his 50th goal, in 50 games, in the third period of Montreal's final game of the season against the Boston Bruins.[7] The league introduced the Maurice "Rocket" Richard Trophy in his honour in 1999, and the Canadiens donated the physical trophy.[8]
Richard's mark stood untouched for 16 seasons until Bernie Geoffrion became the second player to score 50 goals in 1960–61, also for Montreal, doing so in his 62nd game of the season (and the Canadiens' 68th).[1] Early in the 1960s, Chicago Black Hawks teammates Stan Mikita and Bobby Hull began experimenting with curved blades, noticing that different bends made shots more unpredictable for goaltenders. Mikita led the NHL in scoring four times using a curved blade,[9] while Hull became the third player in NHL history to score 50 goals in 1961–62. It was the first of five times he would reach the milestone.[10]
While playing for Boston in the 1970s, Phil Esposito scored 50 goals in five consecutive seasons, led by a then-NHL record 76 goals in 1970–71.[11] By 1980, 24 players had reached the mark.[12] Mike Bossy of the New York Islanders joined Richard as the second man in NHL history to score 50 goals in 50 games in 1980–81. He did so by scoring two goals in the final five minutes of the Islanders' 50th game.[12] Bossy, who had set a league rookie-scoring record with 53 goals in 1977–78, surpassed the 50-goal mark in each of his first nine NHL seasons.[13] The 1980s represented one of the highest scoring eras in NHL history:[14] on 76 occasions, a player scored 50 goals in a season.[1] Wayne Gretzky was responsible for nine of those occasions, including his league-record 92 goals in 1981–82.[15] In that season, Gretzky scored five goals in his 39th game of the season to total 50, bettering Richard and Bossy by 11 games as the fastest to reach the mark.[16]
Bossy, Gretzky, and Alexander Ovechkin are tied for the most 50-goal seasons, with nine each. Bossy holds the record for most consecutive 50-goal seasons with nine. Ovechkin is still an active player.
A record three players from the same team, the Edmonton Oilers, had a 50-goal season in 1983–84, with Gretzky, Glenn Anderson, and Jari Kurri; the Oilers, with the same three players, would match the record in 1985–86.[17] The Oilers also hold the record for most seasons, five, with multiple players achieving a 50-goal season; the Los Angeles Kings are second, with four seasons with multiple 50-goal scorers.[17]
A record 14 players scored 50 goals in 1992–93,[18] the same season that a record 21 players reached the 100-point plateau. Among the 50-goal scorers that season was Teemu Selanne, who scored 76 goals as a rookie, surpassing Bossy's record for first-year players by 23 goals.[19] The next season, 1993–94, Brett Hull achieved his fifth 50-goal season, matching father Bobby's five 50-goal seasons three decades earlier; the two are the only father-son pair to each achieve a 50-goal season, let alone achieving it five times each.[20]
As teams shifted their focus to defensive play rather than offensive, scoring rapidly declined in the late 1990s.[21] No player scored 50 in 1998–99, the first time that had happened in 29 years, excluding the lockout-shortened 1994–95 NHL season.[22]
Only five players reached the 50-goal mark between 1999 and 2004: Pavel Bure, Joe Sakic, Jaromir Jagr, Jarome Iginla, and Milan Hejduk. Following the 2004–05 lockout that cancelled the season, the league introduced numerous rule changes designed to increase scoring.[21] While five players scored 50 in 2005–06, scoring immediately fell off thereafter, with only 15 marks of 50-goals over the next 12 years (contrast that to 14 different 50-goal scorers in 1992–93 alone). Starting with the minor spike in 2005–06, the most prolific 50-goal scorer in the past 16 seasons (to 2021–22) is Alexander Ovechkin, reaching 50 goals in 9 of those seasons, including four seasons where he was the only 50-goal scorer: 2008–09, 2013–14, 2014–15 and 2015–16.[23] Ovechkin is the oldest player to record a 50-goal season at 36 years and 215 days old; the previous oldest was Johnny Bucyk at 35 years and 308 days old.[23]
Players and their 50-goal seasons
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- Key
- * Player is active in the NHL in 2023–24
- ^ Inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame
- (#) Denotes the consecutive count, only if more than one, that player achieved a 50-goal season