Bit of an outlier for Kreider last year is an understatement. He had been in the league for quite a while, fairly consistently put up 20-24 goals a year, had a couple years where he got to 28 goals....his previous career high....then, all of a sudden, at 30 years old....scores 52?
I looked up to find the stats in terms of how many in history have scored 50. It's 91 players out of a total of 7,623.....so 98.8% of all players that have played in the NHL have not scored 50 in a year. Now, this stat is a bit skewed because the total of 7,623 will include guys that never played a full year, but either way....it's rare.
Also, those all time numbers are
HEAVILY skewed by the 80s, which was an insanely high scoring period of hockey, the likes of which we've never seen before (or since). The 80s were a perfect storm of:
- Most coaches were all-in on transition oriented games, there were odd man rushes like mad
- Offensive skill/techniques/schemes were approaching modern levels, but defensive skill/techniques/schemes hadn't improved in the same way
- Goaltending still sucked (small goalies, small pads, no butterfly style, etc.)
Many years throughout the 80s there were 8-10 players scoring 50+, and through the whole decade never less than 5 50 goal scorers per year. While recently there have been some years with 0 50 goal scorers, and we haven't had 5 in one year since 1995/96.
And it wasn't just the 80s - the years surrounding the 80s were also very high scoring, e.g. late 70s to mid 90s, really. In 1992/93 there were 14 different players who scored 50 (compared to just 9 in the past 15 years combined)!
It's harder to score 50 now. I'll bet if you look only at players who entered the league from the mid-90s onwards, the % who've hit 50 is significantly less than 1.2% (like it is for "all time").
www.nhl.com
