One season in the NHL in which a hockey player scores 40 or more goals is routine for a player like Alexander Ovechkin. This mark has been surpassed 623 times in the history of the overseas elite league. This was not uncommon, especially during the 1970s and 1980s.
The 2019-20 season saw five players crack the 40-goal mark in the NHL regular season, even though the season was interrupted by a coronavirus outbreak. Last season, when teams played only 56 games, Auston Matthews was even able to reach that milestone.
Once in a while, however, somebody shows up to score more than forty goals in a single season, and then you never hear about them again in that context. Some manage to do it early in their careers, and others find the right chemistry with their teammates and manage to double their usual number of goals. In the chapters below, you will find the 20 most surprising 40-goal scorers in NHL history.
Canadian forward Rick Kehoe split his NHL career between two clubs – Toronto and Pittsburgh – consistently scoring between 20 and 30 goals per season. But one year, something extraordinary happened, with Kehoe becoming a goal-scoring machine. He scored 55 goals in 80 games in his first season in the 1980s.
Kehoe was beloved by fans, also those who supported other clubs, for practicing a clean game without tricky or unnecessarily hard tackles, something that was not common at the time. He just took the puck and headed it towards the opponent’s goal. However, he was at his best in the 1980/81 season.
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