How Many 60 Goal Scorers In The NHL? Chances of Scoring 60

ByTyler Joubert

Hitting the sixty-goal club is a challenging task in the NHL. There is an exclusive list of players who have done it before, and many who have done it can’t repeat it. In this article, we’ll highlight all of the players who have, at one point, scored 60 goals or more in the National Hockey League.

How many NHL players have scored 60 goals in a season?

22 players have put up a 60-goal season in NHL history.

  • Wayne Gretzky
  • Phil Esposito
  • Pavel Bure
  • Mike Bossy
  • Mario Lemieux
  • Jari Kurri
  • Brett Hull
  • Teemu Selanne
  • Steven Stamkos
  • Steve Shutt
  • Reggie Leach
  • Luc Robitaille
  • Lanny McDonald
  • Jaromir Jagr
  • Guy Lafleur
  • Dennis Maruk
  • Connor McDavid
  • Auston Matthews
  • Bernie Nicholls
  • Alexander Mogilny
  • Alex Ovechkin
  • Steve Yzerman

How rare a 60-goal scorer is in the National Hockey League

Since the 1917 NHL season, approximately 7,623 players have played in the NHL. This means that only around 0.28% of players, or close to 1 in 400, will score 60 goals in a single season.

How many players have scored 60 goals more than once?

Statue of Wayne Gretzky

A statue of Wayne Gretzky, arguably the greatest player of all time.

Among the 22 players who have scored 60 goals or more in the NHL, only eight have managed to put 60 in the back of the net two seasons in a row.

  • Wayne Gretzky (5x)
  • Mike Bossy (5x)
  • Mario Lemieux (4x)
  • Phil Esposito (4x)
  • Brett Hull (3x)
  • Pavel Bure (2x)
  • Steve Yzerman (2x)
  • Jari Kurri (2x)

Since 1917, only 0.104%, or nearly 1 in 1000 players, have managed to post multiple seasons where they’ve scored more than 60 goals.

How many NHL players have scored 70 goals in a season?

The list gets even narrower when we look at 70 goal scorers in the NHL.

  • Wayne Gretzky (4x)
  • Brett Hull (3x)
  • Mario Lemieux (2x)
  • Phil Esposito (1x)
  • Alexander Mogilny (1x)
  • Teemu Selanne (1x)
  • Jarri Kuri (1x)
  • Bernie Nichols (1x)

This means that much like multiple 60-goal scorers in the NHL, only about 1 in 1000 players have ever managed to put the puck in the net 70 times. And out of the 14 situations there has been a 70-goal scorer, it has been Brett Hull or Wayne Gretzky 50% of the time.

It’s safe to say that it is an anomaly for hockey fans to experience a seventy-goal scorer.

We haven’t witnessed it since Alexander Mogilny did it in the 1992-93 season with the Buffalo Sabres. There is talk that WHL phenom Connor Bedard may be the next NHL player who has a shot at scoring 70+. However, it is much too early to make any conclusions.

Another note: although the No. 10 overall pick of the 1988 draft by the Winnipeg Jets, Teemu Selanne, only hit the 70-goal club once, he astonishingly did so during his rookie season in the NHL. From there, he would only go on to score 50 or more goals in a season twice throughout a 1451-game, 1475-point career.

Who is the NHLs most recent 60-goal scorer?

Connor McDavid of the Edmonton Oilers scored 60 goals in 72 games during the 2022-23 season. 

Last season (21-22), Auston Matthews scored 60 goals in 73 games. This was the first 60-goal scorer the NHL had seen in quite some time and the first 60-goal scorer in Toronto Maple Leaf’s history. Considering the team is an original six team, being around since the early 1900s, this was a significant accomplishment.

Another interesting note, when Connor McDavid hit sixty goals, it was the first time the NHL had had back-to-back seasons where a player has scored 60 goals in a season since the early 90s.

How many NHL players have scored 600 goals?

There have only been twenty players to score 600 goals throughout their hockey careers. This works out to be 0.26% of players since 1917, or around 1 in 400. Considering the NHL draft consists of 224 players, the league will hardly draft a player that will eventually score 600 goals more than once every two seasons.

  • Alexander Ovechkin
  • Jarome Iginla
  • Teemu Selanne
  • Joe Sakic
  • Jaromir Jagr
  • Brendan Shanahan
  • Dave Andreychuk
  • Luc Robitaille
  • Brett Hull
  • Steve Yzerman
  • Dino Ciccarelli
  • Mark Messier
  • Mario Lemieux
  • Jari Kurri
  • Mike Gartner
  • Wayne Gretzky
  • Marcel Dionne
  • Phil Esposito
  • Bobby Hull
  • Gordie Howe

If you notice, plenty of players on this list are not in the lists above, meaning they scored 600 goals in their careers but never broke the 60 or 70-goal mark. Many of the players on this list were consistent scorers throughout their careers. They didn’t necessarily need to put up record-breaking goal numbers to have a 600+ goal career.

The only active player among those listed above is Alex Ovechkin of the Washington Capitals. Ovechkin will probably break Wayne Gretzky’s record of the most goals scored in NHL history.

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