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.
When Washington got him a third-round pick in the 1981 draft, he immediately established himself in the Capitals’ lineup, scoring 32 goals in his first two seasons. To this day, Bobby Carpenter is the eighth-most productive 18-year-old forward in NHL history.
The season of his life, though, was 1984-85, his fourth in the elite league, during which he managed to score 53 goals against his rivals. When you look at his statistics, this performance sticks out like a sore thumb. Later on, he has never scored more than 27 goals. In point of fact, he has just as many seasons with fewer than ten goals as he does with 20 or more in his career.
But Carpenter became a legend with his record-breaking shooting performance – he became the first hockey player born in the United States to crack the 50-goal mark in a season. From then on, it was downhill for his productivity. He ended his career with six seasons with the New Jersey Devils, winning the Stanley Cup with them in 1995.
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