#7 Wayne Gretzyky’s 215 Point National Hockey League Season

The Sporting News recently came out with their Top 10 “Great Records” written by Steve Greenberg. In an 11 part series, I will breakdown each record, why the record is impressive (or not), and if the record could ever be broken.

#7 Wayne Gretzyky’s 215 Point National Hockey League Season

The “Great One” set the NHL single season scoring record (goals plus assists) during the 1985-1986 season. The small irony is he didn’t even score the most goals in the NHL that season nor on  his team. That honor belongs to his Edmonton Oilers teammate Jari Kurri at 68 goals scored. You can guess who was passing him the puck that season.

Before Gretzky skated his way into the NHL hockey books, great scores like Bobby Hull through the late 1960’s and then Phil Esposito through the mid-70’s racked up points by scoring 58-76 goals per year. Then Gretzky comes along for the Edmonton Oilers and shattered all preconceived notions of single season scoring and points totaled. His single season high for goals scored was during the 1981-1982 season when he racked up 92! That’s 16 more goals than Esposito’s, then, single season record. During the 1990-1991 NHL season Brett Hull, for the St. Louis Blues, gave Gretzky a scare when he totaled 86 goals. Still the Great One skates on.

Gretzky sits well atop the NHL scoring record book with 2,857 at a pace of 1.92 points per game and 1,963 career assist. Mark Messier is in second at 1,887 at a pace of 1.07 points per game. That’s a difference of 970 career points. The current players with a possible shot include Sid “the Kid” Crosby with an average of 1.364 points per game and Alexander Ovechkin at 1.336 points per game. Sorry guys, you’re still a long way off.

Just to clarify, knowing how great of a scorer he was, he was still unselfish and passed the puck. His willingness to set up his teammates says a lot about his character. Winning tends to take care of individual statistics if you do it the right way game in and game out. This is another record that will not be broken.