The Real Career NHL Goal-Scoring Leaders
by Hawerchuk on Feb 5, 2010 9:00 AM EST
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Tom Tango keeps reminding me of this, and he's right: why do we only count regular season goals in a player's career total? Why don't playoff goals - against tougher competition - count? And why do we only count NHL goals?
Well, here's what happens if we count professional goals. I drew the line above the AHL - otherwise Garry Unger ends up with 653 goals because of some ridiculous seasons in British hockey. This revised goal-scoring table includes regular season and playoff goals from the NHL, WHA, Russia, Sweden, Finland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, as well as all international tournaments of consequence: the Summit Series, the Canada Cup, the World Cup, the Olympics since 1998 and the World Championships. A few players move around quite a bit:
| Player | Goals | Reg NHL | Other G% | Player | Goals | Reg NHL | Other G% | ||
| 1 | Gretzky | 1098 | 894 | 18.6 | 16 | Shanahan | 730 | 656 | 10.1 |
| 2 | Howe | 1074 | 801 | 25.4 | 17 | Ciccarelli | 687 | 608 | 11.5 |
| 3 | Bobby Hull | 1030 | 610 | 40.8 | 18 | Andreychuk | 686 | 640 | 6.7 |
| 4 | Brett Hull | 865 | 741 | 14.3 | 19 | Frank Mahovlich | 679 | 533 | 21.5 |
| 5 | Jagr | 835 | 646 | 22.6 | 20 | Bossy | 673 | 573 | 14.9 |
| 6 | Messier | 814 | 694 | 14.7 | 21 | Sundin | 655 | 564 | 13.9 |
| 7 | Gartner | 797 | 708 | 11.2 | 22 | Bondra | 646 | 503 | 22.1 |
| 8 | Esposito | 796 | 717 | 9.9 | 23 | Stastny | 633 | 450 | 28.9 |
| 9 | Yzerman | 785 | 692 | 11.8 | 24 | Nieuwendyck | 633 | 564 | 10.9 |
| 10 | Lemieux | 784 | 690 | 12.0 | 25 | Modano | 628 | 556 | 11.5 |
| 11 | Kurri | 781 | 601 | 23.0 | 26 | Richard | 626 | 544 | 13.1 |
| 12 | Dionne | 778 | 731 | 6.0 | 27 | Goulet | 623 | 548 | 12.0 |
| 13 | Selanne | 767 | 596 | 22.3 | 28 | Lafleur | 623 | 560 | 10.1 |
| 14 | Robitaille | 731 | 668 | 8.6 | 29 | Recchi | 610 | 560 | 8.2 |
| 15 | Sakic | 731 | 625 | 14.5 | 30 | Nedomansky | 605 | 122 | 79.8 |
Gretzky, Howe and Bobby Hull obviously stand out. You can argue whether Howe and Hull's achievements approach Gretzky's given their time in the WHA, but you can also question Gretzky's scoring relative to Jagr's given that the NHL reached offensive peaks when he set the single-season scoring records.
It's interesting to see some Europeans - Jagr, Kurri, Selanne, Bondra, Stastny - move up because of their overseas accomplishments. But the real reason I generated this list was to see if there was an extremely-talented goalscorer who slipped below the radar, and I found him at #30. Vaclav Nedomansky scored 125 goals in the NHL, 138 in the WHA, at least 235 in the Czech league, and 67 goals in the World Championships, but if we only looked at his six-year career in the NHL, we'd barely notice.
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Two things
1.) Imagine if the players that played in the European leagues were given an 82-game schedule. I think that adds some perspective as well.
2.) Not only would Unger benefit from AHL numbers; Rob Brown would be the best player of the 80s and 90s! (Not a good thing…)
Bettman's Nightmare: A Blog Where Hockey Aficionados Dismantle That Mighty Empire, One Balsillie at a Time
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by Bettman's Nightmare on Feb 5, 2010 12:15 PM EST reply actions
*Nieuwendyk
Bettman's Nightmare: A Blog Where Hockey Aficionados Dismantle That Mighty Empire, One Balsillie at a Time
http://bettmansnightmare.blogspot.com/
by Bettman's Nightmare on Feb 5, 2010 12:15 PM EST reply actions
1. Brown tore it up in the IHL, not AHL, although I agree that if you count the AHL the IHL might as well come along for the ride.
2. I count all of 4 AHL goals for Unger. What did I miss?
My bad...
Bettman's Nightmare: A Blog Where Hockey Aficionados Dismantle That Mighty Empire, One Balsillie at a Time
http://bettmansnightmare.blogspot.com/
by Bettman's Nightmare on Feb 5, 2010 12:40 PM EST up reply actions
He’s counting British hockey, I think. And that includes over 200 goals in 3 (!!!) years.
Bettman's Nightmare: A Blog Where Hockey Aficionados Dismantle That Mighty Empire, One Balsillie at a Time
http://bettmansnightmare.blogspot.com/
by Bettman's Nightmare on Feb 5, 2010 12:41 PM EST up reply actions
Ridiculous?
OK, Unger probably wasn’t tested too much over here…Fair to assume goals scored against the Oilers this season don’t count as legitimate either? :D
Scoring numbers have settled down to slightly more realistic levels now in the UK. At any level of the pro game, Tony Hand’s numbers must be right up there – through last year, 1,125 goals and 3,064 points. And that’s probably understated, since I think it excludes several other competitions outside the main league format here.
Shame the NHL thing didn’t happen for him.
Tony Hand … the guy who was drafted by the same Oilers organization that you now mock, came over, attended Oilers training camp, played 3 games in the Dub (scoring 8 points!), then got homesick. Too bad, the kid had a lot of talent. Nobody, however, could have foreseen he would break all of Wayne Gretzky’s records!
Writer for The Copper & Blue and primary shareholder of Zorg Industries
"Never be ashamed of who you are" -- Jean-Baptiste Emanuel Zorg
by Bruce McCurdy on Feb 5, 2010 5:38 PM EST up reply actions
You can look at the few players who jumped from North America to the British league at the time and estimate that it has a league equivalency of about 0.05-0.08. That’s much lower than the ECHL, for example, and not much higher than Minnesota high school hockey. And then Garry Unger went and played in the 2nd division.
To be clear, I’m being more than facetious about the merits of both the current Oilers (I think) and the relative quality of the British leagues over the last 25 years. Though I believe 82.6% (rough estimate) of Glen Sather’s draft picks between 1984 and 1993 did end up playing over here.
Somebody must have the record for most pro points (of any quality), right?
Tom Tango keeps reminding me of this, and he’s right: why do we only count regular season goals in a player’s career total? Why don’t playoff goals – against tougher competition – count? And why do we only count NHL goals?
Very good questions, and Tom and you are both right. Even within the NHL, the failure to include playoff performance in a player’s career accomplishments is baffling. The league has totally missed the boat on a couple of pretty amazing milestones, such as Wayne Gretzky’s 100 goals in the 1983-84 season (he scored goals #99 and 100 in the last game of the Stanley Cup Finals!). Or how about Gretzky’s 1000th NHL goal; did anybody (besides me) even notice?
Compare and contrast to the attention when Pelé reached a thousand. From Wikipedia:
On 19 November 1969, Pelé scored his 1000th goal in all competitions. This was a highly anticipated moment in Brazil. The goal, called popularly O Milésimo (The Thousandth), occurred in a match against Vasco da Gama, when Pelé scored from a penalty kick, at the Maracanã Stadium.
They were counting pretty much every game he played for Santos or Brazil, and there was a whole lot of hubbub as he approached and finally reached the milestone. I remember it all the way from North America! The NHL had a much simpler job of tracking how many goals the Great One scored in their league, where he was the first, and remains the only, player to light the lamp 1,000 times. March 7, 1998, against Martin Brodeur of all people. Should be a pretty famous moment, what? Do you remember it? If the answer is “no”, the corollary is surely “Way to sell your sport, Gary”.
But I digress. If you extend to include “major league” (with or without international) goals, the 1,000-goal club explans to three. Gretzky’s very last goal was the one that put him on top of the major league snipers: Gretzky 1072, Howe 1071, Bobby Hull 1018. Again, the hype surrounding that goal was fairly minimal, amazing when you think about it. But the NHL has always been quick to hide any reference to the WHA, even though the Rebel League is twisted in its roots.
Speaking of which, it’s also interesting to note that 5 of the top 7 guys on your list (the big 3 plus Messier and Gartner) all played in the WHA in 1978-79 and in the NHL in 1979-80. A very significant period in the history of hockey.
Hmmm, I was going to write a post about this very subject for the Copper & Blue one day. But I think I just wrote it. :)
Writer for The Copper & Blue and primary shareholder of Zorg Industries
"Never be ashamed of who you are" -- Jean-Baptiste Emanuel Zorg
It really is curious. I don’t mind separating regular season and playoffs for specific milestones (they are different environments in many respects), but they should recognize combined ones, too — particularly considering the mythical weight ascribed to the playoffs. I’m certain Gretzky feels like he scored more than 894 NHL goals, no matter how he’s introduced at charity events.
As you noted, soccer really has no trouble doing this, frequently mentioning a player’s goals in the league and “in all competitions” in the same breath. I fear that, as with standings columns, it’s rooted in some notion that we fans just could not possibly handle the complexity of the full picture.
Lighthouse Hockey: Under contract through 2021, knees and hips be damned.
probably a reason they're not combined more often
If you happen to spend your whole career on dreadful teams, you never get the same number of playoff opportunities. Over the course of his career, Gretzky played 221 playoff games: nearly three extra season’s worth of games. To take an example more-or-less at random, Pat Verbeek (a contemporary) played 117. Marcel Dionne played just 49. I agree that it’s not enough of a big deal not to recognize the combined stats more often; just noticing, is all.
Of course I'm an expert, I've seen Slap Shot eleven times!
Still, those games cause wear and tear on the body, as much or more than playing an extra season or two might. Gretzky retired at 38, in part because he played so much hockey in May and September over the years.
Also, as a general rule the truly great ones tend to play on teams that are successful in the playoffs. Like most axioms, there is truth in “the great ones make their teams better”. Of Gabe’s top 20 career goal scorers above, only three (Gartner, Dionne, Ciccarelli) never won a Cup, and most of the others got more than one.
That said, modern players have the advantage of 82 game seasons and four playoff rounds, but for those reasons I don’t expect to see anybody playing into their 50s like Gordie Howe did.
Writer for The Copper & Blue and primary shareholder of Zorg Industries
"Never be ashamed of who you are" -- Jean-Baptiste Emanuel Zorg
by Bruce McCurdy on Feb 8, 2010 6:12 PM EST up reply actions
I remember going to a Raleigh IceCaps game in 1997 or so, and seeing a guy on the other team (Pee Dee Pride, I looked it up). No helmet, long blond hair. Absolutely flying. Skating circles around everybody. “Nedomansky” on the jersey. I thought “That’s odd. I remember a guy named Vaclav Nedomansky playing for the Blues like 10 years ago.” Looked it up. Same guy. He was 47-years-old.
by DoctorMyBrainHurts on Feb 6, 2010 10:08 AM EST reply actions
LOL! So much for my memory. I wonder how he was playing without a helmet.
by DoctorMyBrainHurts on Feb 7, 2010 9:42 AM EST up reply actions
Nedomansky
You have no idea what a pleasant surprise it was to see his name pop up in a post! Blast from the past for a guy whose Czech father kept a close eye on every Czech or Slovak in the NHL.
Lighthouse Hockey: Under contract through 2021, knees and hips be damned.
“Big Ned” was a treat to watch. I saw him play with the Toronto Toros in the WHA a few times, and later with the Red Wings. He came over in 1974 at 30 after being a dominant international player — over the previous six seasons he had scored 65 goals in 65 games for Czechoslovakia at the Worlds and Olympics — and posted seasons of 36, 56 and 41 goals in the Rebel League. In 1977-78 he was the centrepiece of a highly unusual inter-league trade, where he went from Birmingham Bulls to Detroit Red Wings. After a poor season in transition, he posted seasons of 38 and 35 goals in the Motor City before falling off a cliff at age 36. He was never a great defensive player, but in the O-zone Big Ned was something to behold.
Writer for The Copper & Blue and primary shareholder of Zorg Industries
"Never be ashamed of who you are" -- Jean-Baptiste Emanuel Zorg
by Bruce McCurdy on Feb 8, 2010 6:27 PM EST up reply actions
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