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.
James Neal has been one of the most hated players in the NHL. That he is probably not a completely unproblematic hockey player is proven by the fact that he has been with seven clubs in his 14-year NHL career. And Neal is the kind of ruthless brawler who uses his elbows without qualms in personal fights and aims his punches at the knees and heads of his opponents.
So far, he was suspended three times, missed eight games due to suspensions, and paid several thousand dollars in fines three times. Now, at age 34, his performances are rapidly going downhill, and it is very likely that he will end his NHL career for good after this season. However, he was a reliable goalscorer in the past, who contributed 20 goals for the team in the season. In 2011/12, which was his first in Pittsburgh’s jersey, He scored five goals in the last five games of the regular season and increased his goal tally to forty.
Going into the playoffs, The Penguins were one of the contenders for the Stanley Cup, but they were eliminated in the first round in a wild series against Philadelphia. Then Neal spent two more years in Pittsburgh, but he was “only” a 20-goal scorer again.
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