It finally happened. Alexander Ovechkin broke the NHL's most important record. He scored more goals than anyone in the history of hockey, passing Wayne Gretzky on Sunday, April 6th against the New York Islanders. His goal against Ilya Sorokin made history, and he solidified his spot as one of the best to ever play the game of hockey.
Ovechkin made it this far because of his longevity. He was able to keep up his ridiculous scoring pace for his entire career. He's not the best player when it comes to goals per game. In fact, he's seventh on the list. Two of the names are not considered the top scorers ever, as they played in a time before color TV. Both Cy Denneny and Babe Dye scored at a .75 goals-per-game pace.
Some of the others are going to be at the top of the list. Which players join Alex Ovechkin as the best scoring forward in the history of the game?
20. Steven Stamkos
Career Goals: 579 and counting
Steven Stamkos was once considered the top scorer in the league. His 60 goals in the 2011-12 season was one of the best performances we've ever seen. Over the next two seasons, an injury and an NHL lockout hurt his career numbers. He was on a 50-goal pace in 2013 if they played a full 82-game slate instead of the 48-game season that was negotiated by the league and the Player's Association. He also had a 55-goal pace in 13-14 before an injury shortened his season.
While Stamkos has an incredible peak and a consistent career. He had 40 goals just last year. He broke the 40-goal threshold seven times in his career. His ability to put the puck in the back of the net from just about everywhere is why he's still contributing at this level.
Possibly his most epic goal came in 2020. With the Tampa Bay Lightning playing in the Stanley Cup Final against the Dallas Stars, Stamkos missed all of the playoffs with an injury. However, the Lighting brought him to the COVID bubble just in case he could find a way to suit up. Stamkos finally got a chance to pay in Game 3, and he scored in the first period. If there was a crowd there, the roof would come off the place. He didn't play another game, but he earned that Stanley Cup ring.
19. Ilya Kovalchuk
Career Goals: 443
Ah, what could have been. Ilya Kovalchuk is considered one of the greats when it comes to putting pucks in net. His ability was second to none. His talent was off the chart. The former first-overall pick was first considered to be in the stratosphere that Ovechkin was in, only he ended up on teams that didn’t drive offense like Ovechkin’s Capitals did.
It started with the Atlanta Thrashers, who never really got it right to make a winning team. Kovalchuk was incredible with the Thrashers. During his eight years there, he broke 40 goals six times. He led the league in scoring in 2003-04, winning the Rocket Richard Trophy right before the NHL went on a season-long lockout.
Kovalchuk also had 52 goals twice in a season. He looked like he was never going to slow down. He was traded to the New Jersey Devils and signed an insane 15-year contract that offseason. This was the downfall of the goal scorer. After scoring well over half-a-goal per game in Atlanta, Kovalchuk had just 89 goals in 222 games in New Jersey.
He did have his best run in New Jersey, taking them all the way to the Stanley Cup Final in 2012. He led the playoffs with eight goals, and he was on the ice for the epic goal that sent the Rangers home in the Eastern Conference Finals. It was one offseason later that Kovalchuk retired and went back to play in Russia. He did come back to the NHL for a few seasons, but he wasn’t the same. Between the lockout, the trade to the Devils, and the “retirement,” he blew his chance to make the top 10 of this list.
18. Steve Yzerman
Career Goals: 692
The late 90s and early 2000s Detroit Red Wings were the modern version of the Los Angeles Dodgers. They were a star-studded team that felt impossible to stop. They had one of the best defensemen of all time in Nicklas Lidstrom, one of the best goalies ever in Dominik Hasek, and an offense consisting of Sergei Federov, Brendan Shanahan, and Steve Yzerman.
Yzerman was the quintessential Red Wings player. In the grand scheme of the NHL, Yzerman was one of the great players, and he’s actually become underrated. He’s now one of the better NHL GMs, helping build the core of the Lightning that won back-to-back Stanley Cups and now trying to build these Red Wings back into a legacy.
However, before his work in front offices, he was making us forget about what’s called the “dead puck” era. He was still putting pucks in net late in his career, but it started way before that.
Yzerman was getting the puck on his stick in the 80s when everyone was scoring, but he was still standing out amongst the pack. He scored 60+ goals twice and 50+ goals three other times. Yzerman was insane, and he was actually one of the best two-way players in history. Having a player who could win the Selke Trophy (given to the forward who best exemplifies defensive qualities) and also the Lester Pearson Award for most outstanding player shows he was a man of many traits.
17. Teemu Selanne
Career Goals: 684
There are few athletes in any sport that can have a rookie season as impactful as Teemu Selanne’s in 1992-93. He led the league in goals scored for the Winnipeg Jets. His 76 goals is more than 20 goals higher than the second-best rookie scoring season. Alex Ovechkin scored a ridiculous 52 goals in his rookie season, but he isn’t even close to Selanne’s record.
The next two years saw Selanne facing injuries and uncertainty in the lineup, but his career took back off once he was traded to the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim. Immediately after the trade, Selanne scored 16 goals in 28 games and it was on.
Selanne never stopped scoring, putting up 50+ goals the next two seasons. He led the league in goals in both 1997-98 and 1998-99. He was eventually sent to play for the Sharks and Avalanche, but he wasn’t effective there. He was just meant to be in Anaheim, and he signed back there in 2005 after the lockout.
We already said he never stopped scoring, and that was never more evident than when he scored 31 goals as a 40-year-old. Selanne was great from start to finish, and it’s why he retired as one of the most beloved players in league history.
16. Mark Messier
Career Goals: 694
What’s to say about Mark Messier that hasn’t already been said? He was, by far, the foremost championship player of his era. He has six Stanley Cup rings to his name. Two of those rings are incredibly important to his legacy. His fifth ring came where the first four came, with the Edmonton Oilers. However, there was a very important player missing there. Messier scored nine goals and had a league-leading 31 points in the 1990 postseason. That’s important because it was the only Stanley Cup the Edmonton Oilers won after the Wayne Gretzky trade.
Messier’s other huge accomplishment was yanking a New York Rangers team by it’s skate straps to the 1994 Stanley Cup championship. It was the first championship on Broadway 1940, and it’s the only one they’ve won since. That’s 85 years with one Stanley Cup championship, and it would have never happened without Mark Messier.
He is most famous for the guarantee, but it’s the execution of the guarantee that we don’t talk about enough. Down 3-2 in the 1994 Eastern Conference Finals to the upstart New Jersey Devils, Messier guaranteed that the Rangers were winning the game. In Game 6, he scored a hat trick to ensure that victory.
Of course, there are so many more amazing moments in Messier’s career. In fact, he is one of just six players who have more than 800 goals in their career when combining the regular season and the playoffs.
15. Sidney Crosby
Career Goals: 622 and counting
Sidney Crosby is not considered a “goal scorer.” He might be the best player of this era of hockey, and his rivalry with Alexander Ovechkin was key in hockey growing over the past decade, but perception was not that he was a goal scorer. Yet, he was the league’s leading goal scorer twice. He had 51 goals in 2009-10 and 44 goals in 2016-17.
Crosby was known as the guy who can make any line a top line in the league. Whether he was playing with Chris Kunitz or Marian Hossa, Crosby was a dominant player. Even today, with the Pittsburgh Penguins going through a soft rebuild, Crosby is still one of the best players in the league.
Of all the great moments Crosby has had with the Penguins, and there are a lot of them, the greatest moment of his career was a goal, but it was a day he was wearing the red and white of Team Canada. It was the gold medal game at the 2010 Winter Olympics. The Canadians were going one on one with Team USA. Zach Parise scored late to tie the game and give the U.S. momentum, but Crosby was there when the Canadians needed him. He scored a goal that gave Canada the gold medal.
Crosby has scored his way to three Stanley Cup championships, finding a way to light the lamp when the Penguins needed it most. During the Eastern Conference Finals in 2016, Crosby scored three game-winning goals in the series, including the overtime goal in Game 2. He did heroic things like this, leading to the 2016 Conn Smythe as playoff MVP.
14. Luc Robataille
Career Goals: 688
Talk about hitting the ground running, Luc Robataille definitely wasted no time hitting the league by storm. He hit the net 45 times in his rookie season. He kept getting better, hitting his peak in season seven when he scored 63 goals as a 26-year-old. Robataille had eight-straight 40-goal seasons to start his career, then he never hit that milestone again.
Prior to Ovechkin’s dominance, Robataille was considered the greatest scoring left winger of all time. He was dominant from that side of the ice. He continued to break records for his position, and he still holds the record for most points by a left winger in history.
In 1994, Robataille left the Kings and fell off the map. He went from a 40-goal scorer to a 20-goal scorer with the Penguins and Rangers. After three years away, Robataille returned to the Kings, and he salvaged the end of his career. He had 30+ goals for four straight seasons from age 32 to age 35.
Robataille left for Detroit before signing for a third time with the Kings to finish off his career. Today, he has the 13th most goals ever. He had these strange stretches in his career where he couldn’t score like we were used to, but he still finished as one of the best to ever have a puck on his stick, and he is second to Ovechkin among left wings.
13. Mike Gartner
Career Goals: 708
Mike Gartner was a trivia magnate. He finished second in Rookie of the Year voting while playing on a line with Mark Messier. But that wasn’t in the NHL. That was for the Cincinnati Stingers of the WHA, where multiple teams played before the 1979 merger brought both their teams to the league. Since the Stingers did not survive in the merger, Gartner started his career with the Washington Capitals. He was just 20 years old in his first NHL season, but it was still a positive campaign with 36 goals and 32 assists.
Gartner continued to improve his scoring, scoring 48 goals as a 21-year-old in his third year in the NHL. He consistently scored a ton of goals in his career, scoring 40 or more nine times. No matter where he played, whether that was Washington, New York, Toronto, Phoenix, or Minnesota, he performed. He scored at least 30 goals in a season at each stop.
He finished his career with north of 700 goals, setting a milestone only matched by a select few in the league. He did play in the high-scoring 1980s, but he still was a standard-bearer for scoring highlights.
Gartner also brought another element to his game that’s more apt for today’s hockey. He used his speed to score. He would often pass defensemen on a break, and it would often lead to the light going off and disappointed faces on his opponents.
12. Auston Matthews
Career Goals: 393 and counting
Auston Matthews is the one player most assume has the best chance to one day catch Alexander Ovechkin. Looking at the landscape of the NHL, even Ovechkin has trouble keeping up with Matthews today. The Toronto Maple Leafs superstar has been a consistent scorer from day one. No, literally, Matthews scored four goals in his NHL debut. It was a sign that the NHL was in the presence of its next star, and he was playing for the league’s premier franchise.
Matthews currently has 393 goals at the time of this writing. He averages .64 goals per game, the only active player with a higher scoring average than Ovechkin. If he continues that scoring pace, it would take him 785 games to break Ovechkin’s current record. We obviously don’t know how much longer Ovechkin is going to play or how much he’ll slow down, but Matthews needs to play just 10 more seasons to break Ovechkin’s current record.
At 27 years old, we see Matthews playing for 10-12 more years, but his effectiveness will always be in question. As you will see as we progress down the list, some of the best scorers in the history of the game lost it by the end. Whether it be from injuries, the impacts of age, or a combination of both, being a top scorer for as long as Ovechkin is an anomaly.
Still, what we’ve seen from Matthews so far in his career is impressive. He scored 40 goals as a rookie, hit 60 goals in a season twice in his career already, and he’s never scored less than 30 goals in a season. With him directly in his prime, we expect to see another few seasons of absolutely insane numbers.
11. Brett Hull
Career Goals: 741
They say it’s hard to walk in the footsteps of your father, but there is no better example of doing that with a superstar in hockey than Brett Hull. Heck, we’d but him up there with Peyton Manning and Barry Bonds of players who did it at the very top level possible. Yet, Archie Manning and Bobby Bonds weren’t the very best players the league had ever seen. Bobby Hull was, and Brett Hull had to face the fact that nobody thought he could be his father.
That’s part of the reason Brett Hull fell to the sixth round of the NHL Draft. Most scouts didn’t believe he could ever find the talent to deliver what his attitude was spouting. Boy, were they wrong.
It took Hull a little longer to become a certified superstar than some of the others on the list, but his peaks might be the best we’ve ever seen from a scorer. From 1989 to 1992, Hull scored a total of 228 goals over three seasons. He legitimately scored 86 goals in one season for the St. Louis Blues. That is more than a goal per game over the course of a season.
Only Wayne Gretzky has scored more goals in one season. Hull at his peak was one of the best of all time.
10. Jaromir Jagr
Career Goals: 766
Jaromir Jagr walked so Tom Brady could fly. He was the original old man still putting up numbers in a league at an uncomfortable age, which rolled out the red carpet for LeBron James to still dominate post-40. The kids these days know Jagr as the player still holding onto his career as he’s still playing professional hockey into his 50s.
However, Jagr was once one of the top players in the league. He wasn’t also the best goal scorer in the league, but that was one of the tools in his arsenal. Jagr was beyond thought when it came to how good he was on the ice. Those early years alongside Mario Lemieux were some of the best tag teams since Macho Man joined forces with Hulk Hogan in the 1980s to make the Mega Powers.
From 1995 to 2001, Jagr scored at least 35 goals every season, put up 52 goals once, and 62 goals another time. While assists were his forte, he could easily score whenever he felt like it.
Jagr continued to be a scoring threat late into his career, putting up 27 goals as a 43 year old for the Florida Panthers. At the end of his career (which we can only assume happened since anything is possible with Jagr), he is sitting fourth all-time in goals scored. Yet, when it comes to points, he is second only to The Great One.
9. Marcel Dionne
Career Goals: 731
Marcel Dionne shows that great things can come in small packages. Bad cliche, we know, but that’s the type of talking point Dionne would laugh off throughout his career. He played 1,348 NHL games for the Detroit Red Wings, Los Angeles Kings and New York Rangers between 1971-89. Players often don’t make it nearly that long, but scoring 731 goals along the way makes his journey even better.
Dionne wasted no time becoming an offensive force, putting up more points in his first four seasons than any player up to that point.
During his prime, Dionne was ridiculous on the ice. He had 50 goals in a season six different times in his career. It was a crazy run for the Los Angeles Kings where he put them up there with the best teams in the league. Dionne never got the ultimate prize, the Stanley Cup, but he put his team in a position despite having little help around him.
Dionne went second overall to Montreal Canadiens great Guy Lafleur in the draft, and they were compared to each other for the rest of their career. Dionne was clearly the better scorer, and he probably would have been even better if he had been drafted by that Canadiens team.
8. Pavel Bure
Career Goals: 437
The number next to Pavel Bure’s career goals statistic might surprise many wondering why he’s in the top 10 of goal scorers all time, but you have to trust us. Bure was as good a scorer as anyone we’ve ever seen, and he was doing it in the Dead Puck Era. He had 60 goals in back-to-back seasons, just his sophomore and junior campaign in the NHL.
Bure would break 50+ goals three more times in his career, putting up 117 goals between 1999 and 2001. His electric game style made him must-see TV. He played with such speed and impact that teams were impressed, even if they were his opponent.
What was most impressive was that Bure could score in any way on any spot on the ice. His shot was lethal, with the precision of a sharpshooter; he was one of the scariest opponents for goalies across the league. His skill was unmatched. Honestly, he might have the most scoring talent of anyone who’s ever played in the NHL. Not taking away from anyone on this list, but Bure is what AI should be building when asked, “Make me the ideal shooting stride.”
Unfortunately, Bure had a constant knee injury that eventually led to his retirement. He was trying to make a comeback for two years before officially calling it quits in 2005 after the season-long lockout. Bure’s last season was when he was just 31 years old. If he avoided injuries (a large ask), he would have been higher on this list still. We have to honor the legacy he left on the game.
7. Phil Esposito
Career Goals: 717
There is no player who had the run that Phil Esposito had to start the 1970s. He led the league in scoring every year from 1970 to 1975. He won the Maurice “Rocket” Richard Trophy six seasons in a row. Nobody was scoring like Phil Esposito did for the Boston Bruins.
Over those six seasons, Esposito broke 40 goals each season, and he hit 60+ goals four times. In 1970-71, he hit 76 goals in one season. Esposito’s consistency is what made him great. He just kept scoring no matter the circumstances. He didn’t worry about being too young or getting too old. He had 30+ goals in 13-straight seasons, which is second all-time.
Esposito was amazing at finding open ice. He would slip away from defenders and rocket the goal past a netminder. It was frustrating for defenders, and it didn’t help that Esposito was known for wearing his emotions on his jersey. There was no reason not to show it, as nobody could make him pay for cheering on his goals.
Esposito might not be as talented as some of the names on this list, but he was relentless. He played with a nose for the net, and he made sure to always put himself in a position to score. He wouldn’t stop moving if he wasn’t in a scoring area. The goal was goals, and Esposito did it was well as anyone in his era of hockey.
6. Bobby Hull
Career Goals: 610
Some like to consider Bobby Hull as the “true” goal scoring leader as he left the NHL towards the end of his prime to play in the WHA. None of his goals from the WHA count toward his career totals, so he’s leaving more than 300 goals on the table. There is a reason Hull’s seven years with the Winnipeg Jets don’t count. The WHA was a much weaker league than the NHL. Hull scored 77 goals in that league as a 36-year-old.
But don’t take anything away from Bobby Hull. He was probably the first player in the “best of all time” debate. He was absolutely electric when he played. In his first 12 seasons, he led the league in scoring in seven of them. From 1965 to 1969, he led the league in scoring every single year. Somehow, he only won one Hart Trophy as league MVP in that span, but there was likely some “MVP fatigue” that hurt his prospects for the league’s top award.
He was still undoubtedly the league’s top player at this time. Nobody could score like Bobby Hull in the 1970s. He made it a point to score with volume, putting up more than 300 shots every year and sometimes even breaking 400.
Hull will go down as one of the game’s best simply because of this statistic. Leaving the NHL at 34 and failing to return until he was 40 hurt his stats when it comes to the all-time best, but historians will tell you this was greatness personified. Hull was a superstar before we really could grasp the term. He put butts in seats and helped put ice hockey on the map in the U.S.
5. Gordie Howe
Career Goals: 801
Do you know what it takes to gain the nickname “Mr Hockey”? Gordie Howe was the league’s greatest player personified for decades. He did everything with greatness, leading the league in goals scored five times. He was a superstar from the day he stepped foot on NHL ice and continued to dominate the game well into his 40s. The longevity of Gordie Howe has never been matched in sports. Tom Brady who? Howe played professional hockey at a high level into his 50s.
Howe finished his NHL career with 801 goals. He added another 174 goals in the WHA. So, technically, Ovechkin has a while to go before he catches the goals total of Gordie Howe. This was a player that did everything great. Nothing he did was lackadaisical or less than stellar. Greatness is all Howe knew.
Howe did it all. Stanley Cups? He won four of them. Records? He held all of them when he retired. Scoring? He had 1,850 points in the NHL alone. Dominance? Howe was an NHL All-Star 23 times in his career.
Some players might have streets named after them, but Gordie Howe sees his name on bridges in the U.S. Other players might have rinks bearing their name, but Howe sees his name on arenas. The impact of Howe versus so many other players is not there, and his goal scorer was the trait that made him the legend he is in hockey.
4. Wayne Gretzky
Career Goals: 894
We have to address this, we know. Wayne Gretzky being fourth might seem preposterous when it comes to any NHL ranking, but Gretzky was so great at making his teammates better, that scoring wasn’t even what he did best. The Great One still led all players not named Ovechkin in goals, and he is probably the best hockey player to ever lace up his skates, but there is an inflation to his numbers that knock him down just barely. He played in the highest-scoring era of all time, and he was the best of the best during most of those years.
Not only does Wayne Gretzky hold the most goals in a career, but he has the top two goal scoring seasons of all time. He had at least 40 goals in every one of his first 12 seasons in the league. That’s preposterous. It doesn’t even seem possible. Yet, Gretzky did it and did it with ease.
That was the thing about watching Wayne Gretzky play hockey. Oftentimes, it seemed effortless for him. He was more than just smooth with his skating. He was gliding across the ice with the puck. His vision was hard to define, but it was clearly better than anyone who’s ever played hockey. He knew exactly what to do, the science behind every pass and shot was perfect.
There is no denying Wayne Gretzky as a hockey player. Heck, there’s not really a way to deny him as a scorer. The numbers speak for themselves. He also avoided major injuries in his career, which helped him accumulate some of his untouchable records. However, when looking at pure scorers, we do have him fourth.
3. Mike Bossy
Career Goals: 573
Mike Bossy was the best goal scorer. End of sentence. We understand he’s not on the top of the list, and that’s because injuries ruined the second half of his career. He played from 1977 to 1987, and he scored 50 goals in every single season besides one. Bossy had 38 goals in his final season while dealing with the injuries that ended it.
Bossy finished his career with 573 goals over 10 seasons. That’s simple math for us. He averaged 57 goals per season. Think about how insane that is. He averaged 57 goals per season. There are players on this list that never hit 57 goals in a season, and that was Mike Bossy’s average. He was a superstar for the dynasty New York Islanders.
And that’s the other aspect of Bossy’s career, he wasn’t just doing it in the regular season. Bossy scored almost a goal per game in the playoffs for three of the Islanders’ four-straight Stanley Cups in the 1980s. He was incredible in the regular season, but he found a way to be even better in the playoffs. This was the greatest scorer of all time.
Bossy finished his career with .76 goals per game in the regular season. Nobody has ever done that while scoring at least 100 goals in their career. He’s at the top of the list. Unfortunately, his career was cut short due to chronic back problems. He was just 30 years old, and his career was over. If he kept playing well into his 30s, there’s a good chance Ovechkin is still chasing the goals record.
2. Mario Lemieux
Career Goals: 690
Mario Lemieux is another player who had injuries and cancer shorten what might be the best career we’ve ever seen. Which makes it even wilder that Lemieux finished his career with 690 goals and 1,723 points. He averaged .75 goals per game over 915 games, which has only been beaten by Mike Bossy. Mario Lemieux was effortless on the ice.
We can talk all day about Lemieux being insane in the regular season, his impact on the city of Pittsburgh and the sport of ice hockey, or his value to the league in general, but we want to go a little more micro to talk about Lemieux. In 1992, Lemieux scored more than a goal per game on the way to winning the Stanley Cup. He led the playoffs in power-play games (8), shorthanded goals (2), and game-winning goals (5) that season.
That was Mario. He could score any way from anywhere. One of his unbreakable records is when he scored five goals five different ways (5v5, power play, shorthanded, penalty shot, and empty net) against the New Jersey Devils. He was downright dangerous when he was on the ice (and not in the “Scott Stevens” way, but more like the “we’re just resigned to the fact that he’s going to score" way).
His accumulation numbers would be up there with Gretzky and Ovechkin if he didn’t lose multiple seasons throughout his career. He missed more than 100 games to lockouts, a few seasons so he could fight cancer, and his injuries added more missed games on top of that. Still, to finish with this career is amazing.
1. Alex Ovechkin
Career Goals: 895 and counting
What more can be said about Alexander Ovechkin that hasn’t been said over the past few days, weeks, and months? Ovechkin is the greatest scoring forward of all time. Of course, the numbers dictate that. As of this writing, Ovechkin is one goal ahead of Wayne Gretzky as the greatest goal-scoring career ever. He also has multiple seasons where he was the best of the best.
Ovechkin led the league in scoring nine times in his career. This is Ovechkin’s 20th season in the NHL, and he failed to hit 30 goals once. That was the 2020-21 season that was shortened by the COVID-19 pandemic. It took a global pandemic to keep Ovechkin from scoring 30 goals. He did it during the 2013 lockout-shortened season. Every injury didn’t keep him from this threshold, and he actually led multiple seasons in scoring where he didn’t play every game.
It’s hilarious when thinking about the narrative we heard last season. Ovechkin “struggled” to a 31-goal performance last season, and some asked whether Ovechkin would ever break the goals record. We should learn about doubting this man. He always overcomes adversity and puts pucks in the net.
We have to talk about the run of the 2018 Washington Capitals. On the back of Ovechkin, this team finally brought the Stanley Cup to the nation’s capital. Ovechkin led all players with 15 goals that postseason. It was an important run for his legacy, adding a Cup to a career that will be that of a first-ballot Hall of Famer.