100 Primary Points

[tabness]

I have been wanting to gather all the boxscore data throughout the history of the NHL for a long time now but the data has never been readily available until recently. It is now available through the NHL statsapi but I hate computers and suck at using them (despite being a product manager in tech lolol) so gathering that data has been going slowly for me (if anyone knows how to wait for all asynchronous calls to complete before taking the next action in Swift please hit me up). What I have noticed is that there are enough games in many older seasons straight up missing in the NHL statsapi even now and it would be too tedious to manually get the missing data from newspapers or the Hockey Summary Project.

So I'm still waiting on getting all of the boxscore data but recently I checked out Hockey Reference and saw that they had expanded their scoring logs to the 1987-1988 season (before they only used to have scoring logs from the 2005-2006 season and then they put playoff scoring logs for seasons before that). This was super cool but I found something even cooler: you can get scoring logs for seasons even before 1987-1988 as all you have to do is change the season in the URL manually (Gordie Howe 1968-69 Scoring Log | Hockey-Reference.com). This works back to at least the 1968-1969 season for some players at least (I don't know if the data is complete or fully accurate before 1987-1988 but it seemed to check out in all the examples I used).

Now the scoring logs don't contain full boxscore data and it is against the terms of service to go and scrape the site so I can't use it for everything I had in mind but I did go through and check on something I had always wondered about: second assists affecting scoring.

There has been a lot of talk recently about second assists. Sometimes I think it would have been better if hockey awarded assists like basketball (the issues with subjective scorekeeping exist for other stats as well). While I do think that there are other factors to consider in drawing conclusions from points many of which may be more important (player role/team style/linemates/teammates/era/coaching/opponent factors/position) my guess is that primary points in general offer a better indication of direct offensive involvement than points alone just as points in general offer a better indication of direct offensive involvement than on ice goals for.

I ended up choosing 100 points as a benchmark (arbitrary but still a commonly used milestone) and checked the numbers of every player with a 100 point season.

This was done manually so there may be errors in transcription. Any corrections are appreciated.

Please note that I did not attempt to correct for any issues in actually granting assists. Sometimes assists are granted when they should not be (even though apparently it was technically not necessary to touch the puck to get an assist at least as late as 1992-1993 and maybe even later) and sometimes the scorers incorrectly award assists though recently it appears that the NHL fixes these issues more.

So here are the 100 primary point scorers:

name	season	primary points	games played	goals	points
Wayne Gretzky	1981-1982	181	80	92	212
Wayne Gretzky	1983-1984	177	74	87	205
Wayne Gretzky	1984-1985	171	80	73	208
Wayne Gretzky	1985-1986	164	80	52	215
Wayne Gretzky	1982-1983	164	80	71	196
Mario Lemieux	1988-1989	155	76	85	199
Wayne Gretzky	1986-1987	154	79	62	183
Wayne Gretzky	1980-1981	129	80	55	164
Mario Lemieux	1987-1988	127	77	70	168
Mario Lemieux	1995-1996	125	70	69	161
Mario Lemieux	1992-1993	124	60	69	160
Steve Yzerman	1988-1989	124	80	65	155
Wayne Gretzky	1990-1991	122	78	41	163
Phil Esposito	1970-1971	122	78	76	152
Bernie Nicholls	1988-1989	121	79	70	150
Pat LaFontaine	1992-1993	121	84	53	148
Wayne Gretzky	1988-1989	120	78	54	168
Mike Bossy	1981-1982	117	80	64	147
Phil Esposito	1973-1974	117	78	68	145
Dennis Maruk	1981-1982	116	80	60	136
Wayne Gretzky	1987-1988	114	64	40	149
Marcel Dionne	1979-1980	113	80	53	137
Pierre Turgeon	1992-1993	113	83	58	132
Brett Hull	1990-1991	113	78	86	131
Mario Lemieux	1985-1986	112	79	48	141
Jaromir Jagr	1995-1996	111	82	62	149
Guy Lafleur	1976-1977	111	80	56	136
Peter Stastny	1981-1982	110	80	46	139
Steve Yzerman	1992-1993	110	84	58	137
Jari Kurri	1984-1985	110	73	71	135
Guy Lafleur	1977-1978	110	78	60	132
Kent Nilsson	1980-1981	110	80	49	131
Dale Hawerchuk	1984-1985	109	80	53	130
Phil Esposito	1971-1972	108	76	66	133
Jari Kurri	1985-1986	108	78	68	131
Denis Savard	1987-1988	107	80	44	131
Adam Oates	1992-1993	106	84	45	142
Teemu Selanne	1992-1993	106	84	76	132
Phil Esposito	1972-1973	106	78	55	130
Bryan Trottier	1978-1979	105	76	47	134
Alexander Mogilny	1992-1993	105	77	76	127
Mike Bossy	1985-1986	105	80	61	123
Michel Goulet	1983-1984	105	75	56	122
Paul Coffey	1985-1986	104	79	48	138
Mario Lemieux	1991-1992	104	64	44	131
Steve Yzerman	1989-1990	104	79	62	127
Wayne Gretzky	1989-1990	103	73	40	142
Phil Esposito	1974-1975	103	79	61	127
Phil Esposito	1968-1969	103	74	49	126
Marcel Dionne	1980-1981	102	80	58	135
Mike Bossy	1978-1979	102	80	69	126
Mike Bossy	1984-1985	102	76	58	117
Marcel Dionne	1978-1979	101	80	59	130
Mark Messier	1989-1990	101	79	45	129
Jaromir Jagr	2005-2006	101	82	54	123
Mike Bossy	1980-1981	101	79	68	119
Alex Ovechkin	2007-2008	101	82	65	112
Wayne Gretzky	1979-1980	100	79	51	137
Guy Lafleur	1979-1980	100	74	50	125
Sergei Fedorov	1993-1994	100	82	56	120
Mike Bossy	1982-1983	100	79	60	118

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

There are 27 players who had 61 100 primary point seasons (compared to 109 players who had 276 100 point seasons)

The first 100 primary point season was in 1968-1969 and the last in 2007-2008 (compared to the first 100 point season in 1968-69 and the last in 2017-2018)

There were no 100 primary point seasons in:

• 1917-1918 to 1967-1968
• 1969-1970
• 1975-1976
• 1994-1995
• 1997-1998 to 2003-2004
• 2006-2007
• 2008-2009 to 2017-2018

(compared to no 100 point seasons in 1917-1918 to 1967-1968 / 1994-1995 / 1999-2000 / 2001-2002 / 2003-2004 / 2012-2013 / 2014-2015)

The season with the most number of 100 primary point seasons was 1992-1993 with 8 (compared to the most number of 100 point seasons being 1992-1993 with 21)

There are 9 players who had multiple 100 primary point seasons:

• Wayne Gretzky 12
• Mike Bossy 6
• Phil Esposito 6
• Mario Lemieux 6
• Marcel Dionne 3
• Guy Lafleur 3
• Steve Yzerman 3
• Jaromir Jagr 2
• Jari Kurri 2

(compared to 58 players with multiple 100 point seasons)

Highest number of points in a season without it being a 100 primary point season:

• Bobby Orr 1970-1971 139 points (86 primary points)

Lowest number of points in a season with it being a 100 primary point season:

• Alex Ovechkin 2007-2008 112 points (101 primary points)

Players with all 100 point seasons also being 100 primary point seasons:

• Phil Esposito 6
• Dennis Maruk 1 (only player to hit 100 primary points and 100 points in just one season)

Players with the most 100 point seasons and no 100 primary point seasons:

• Bobby Orr 6
• Joe Sakic 6

Highest primary point percentage of 100 primary point seasons:

• Alex Ovechkin 2007-2008 90.18% (only one to be over 90%)

Highest primary point percentage of 100 point seasons:

• Alex Ovechkin 2007-2008 90.18% (only one to be over 90%)

Lowest primary point percentage of 100 primary point seasons:

• Wayne Gretzky 1988-1989 71.43%

Lowest primary point percentage of 100 point seasons:

• Mark Recchi 1990-1991 59.29% (only one to be less than 60%)

Highest first assist total:

• Wayne Gretzky 1985-1986 113 (only player and season to have 100 primary points by just first assists compared to 3 players with 13 100 point seasons with 100 assists)

Lowest first assist total:

• Brett Hull 1990-1991 27 (Brett Hull 1991-1992 had 18 first assists which is lowest among 100 point seasons)

Highest second assist total:

• Wayne Gretzky 1985-1986 51 (Bobby Orr 1970-1971 had 53 second assists which is highest among 100 point seasons)

Lowest second assist total:

• Alex Ovechkin 1985-1986 11 (Charlie Simmer 1980-1981 also had 11 second assists which is tied lowest among 100 point seasons)

Primary points among 100 point seasons by defensemen:

• Paul Coffey 1985-1986 104 (only player and season to have 100 primary points as a defenseman)
• Bobby Orr 1970-1971 86
• Paul Coffey 1988-1989 86
• Bobby Orr 1974-1975 85
• Paul Coffey 1983-1984 85
• Bobby Orr 1969-1970 84
• Bobby Orr 1973-1974 78
• Paul Coffey 1984-1985 76
• Bobby Orr 1971-1972 74
• Paul Coffey 1989-1990 71
• Bobby Orr 1972-1973 68
• Al MacInnis 1990-1991 64
• Denis Potvin 1978-1979 63
• Brian Leetch 1991-1992 62 (lowest primary points among 100 point seasons)

Just missed 100 primary points in a season:

• Bryan Trottier 1981-1982 99
• Joe Thornton 2005-2006 99
• Mark Recchi 1992-1993 99
• Mario Lemieux 1996-1997 99
• Marcel Dionne 1974-1975 99
• Brett Hull 1989-1990 99

Lowest primary points among 100 point seasons (forwards only):

• Peter Forsberg 2002-2003 70
• Sidney Crosby 2013-2014 70
• Peter Stastny 1984-1985 70
• Ron Francis 1992-1993 70
• Jaromir Jagr 1997-1998 69
• Doug Weight 1995-1996 68
• Joe Juneau 1992-1993 68
• Mark Recchi 1990-1991 67
• Claude Giroux 2017-2018 67
• Joe Sakic 2006-2007 65

Primary point scoring leader different than scoring leader:

• 1974-1975: Phil Esposito (Bobby Orr)
• 1989-1990: Steve Yzerman (Wayne Gretzky)
• 1993-1994: Sergei Fedorov (Wayne Gretzky)
• 2005-2006: Jaromir Jagr (Joe Thornton)

(these are the confirmed cases due to checking every 100 point season there are definitely others (2002-2003 / 2006-2007 / 2009-2010 are confirmed to have a different scoring leader but more players who did not score 100 points need to be checked to confirm who is the primary point scoring leader)

Click to read more...

 

[Doctor No]

Interesting research - thanks for sharing it!

 

[danyhabsfan]

McDavid is on pace for 100 primary points

 

[Hockey Outsider]

Great work! This is a project that I've been meaning to take on, but glad to see that someone else has done a good job with it.

Obviously those numbers aren't adjusted for era. Do you have a list of seasons with, say, 80 or 90 primary points from, say, 1996-97 onwards (the dead puck era)?

 

[Artorius Horus T]

Holy smokes!!!!!. You are the man!. Thanks. Must of taken quite some time to do.
Very interesting read in deed.

 

[Hockey Outsider]

So I'm still waiting on getting all of the boxscore data but recently I checked out Hockey Reference and saw that they had expanded their scoring logs to the 1987-1988 season (before they only used to have scoring logs from the 2005-2006 season and then they put playoff scoring logs for seasons before that). This was super cool but I found something even cooler: you can get scoring logs for seasons even before 1987-1988 as all you have to do is change the season in the URL manually (Gordie Howe 1968-69 Scoring Log | Hockey-Reference.com). This works back to at least the 1968-1969 season for some players at least (I don't know if the data is complete or fully accurate before 1987-1988 but it seemed to check out in all the examples I used).

Good to know - I didn't realize those game logs existed. I looked up Gordie Howe's 1953 season out of curiosity (arguably the greatest NHL season through the league's first fifty years). Just 10 of his 95 points were secondary - so he scored 85 primary points during a 70 game schedule, during a very low-scoring era. Incredible!

 

[BenchBrawl]

Great work.

 

[Dingo]

great work. ill keep my eyes open for when someone also isloates ES points from this!

 

[decma]

Highest primary point percentage of 100 primary point seasons:

• Alex Ovechkin 2007-2008 90.18% (only one to be over 90%)

Thanks for putting this together. Very interesting.

Other than Ovechkin, eight seasons with at least 85% of points being primary points.

Highest primary point percentage of 100 primary point seasons:
1. Ovechkin, 2007-08, 90.2%
2. Bossy, 1984-1985, 87.2%
3. Gretzky, 1983-84, 86.3%
4. Hull, 1990-91, 86.3%
5. Goulet, 1983-84, 86.1%

6. Turgeon, 1992-93, 85.6%
7. Gretzky, 1981-82, 85.4%
8. Bossy, 1985-86, 85.4%
9. Maruk, 1981-82, 85.3%
10. Bossy, 1980-81, 84.9%



I think what is also interesting is the highest and lowest percentage of assists that were first assists.

Quite a bit of variation here, with some guys having primary assists as about 75% of their total assists, and others barely more than 55%. And this is only among guys with at least 100 primary points. If we did this for guys with 100 overall points, I suspect we might get some seasons where a guy had more secondary assists than primary assists.

Highest first assist percentage:

1. Ovechkin, 2007-08, 76.6%
2. Gretzky, 1983-84 ,76.3%
3. Gretzky, 1986-87, 76.0%
4. Bossy, 1984-85, 74.6%
5. Gretzky, 1982-83, 74.4%

6. Nilsson, 1980-81, 74.4%
7. Turgeon, 1992-93, 74.3%
8. Goulet, 1983-84, 74.2%
9. Gretzky, 1981-82, 74.2%
10. Maruk, 1981-82, 73.7%

Lowest first assist percentage:

1. Selanne, 1992-93, 53.6%
2. Jagr, 1995-96, 56.3%
3. Mogilny, 1992-93, 56.9%
4. Gretzky, 1979-80, 57.0%
5. Dionne, 1980-81, 57.1%

6. Bossy, 1978-79, 57.9%
7. Lemieux, 1987-88, 58.2%
8. Dionne, 1978-79, 59.2%
9. Hull, 1990-91, 60.0%
10. Lemieux, 1992-93, 60.4%

 

[Henkka]

Interesting how it goes. Most primary points will go in many cases to great shooters, because they get the 1st assists when some whacks in A) a rebound after a shot, B) tips a shot in.

That was my first thought when I saw Ovechkin, Bossy and young "goalscoring" Gretzky there.

So, usually it could not mean a correlation between passing or playmaking skills.

Like this:

 

[tabness]

I'm glad people found this interesting! I'll be honest, I was a bit disappointed at some of the results because they ended up confirming most of the common sense intuitions I had (list will generally just follow 100 point season list and defensemen will have more second points and so on) but at least there are still some interesting divergences.

Oh and I forgot to give a big shout out to @morehockeystats whose website give me the inspiration to finally go and figure out stats of things I was interested in and also for his helping me to understand the NHL statsapi and how to get what I needed.

Obviously those numbers aren't adjusted for era. Do you have a list of seasons with, say, 80 or 90 primary points from, say, 1996-97 onwards (the dead puck era)?

The thought did cross my mind of adjusting the points (based on the method outlined in Total Hockey) but I decided against it because I personally just don't like that method of adjusting stats very much as it seems to suffer from era biases. Also wouldn't just proportionally adjusting the first and second assists up or down be an issue without adjusting for the number of first assists vs second assists per season as well?

That's why I included the years in the list as obviously a pretty big trend is when there are more 100 point seasons there are more 100 primary point seasons.

I don't have data for seasons with less than 100 points but here are all of the 100 point seasons from 1996-1997 to 2017-2018 (sorted first by year and then primary points and then games played and then goals):

name	season	primary points	games played	goals	points
Mario Lemieux	1996-1997	99	76	50	122
Teemu Selanne	1996-1997	86	78	51	109
Jaromir Jagr	1997-1998	69	77	35	102
Jaromir Jagr	1998-1999	88	81	44	127
Teemu Selanne	1998-1999	87	75	47	107
Paul Kariya	1998-1999	76	82	39	101
Jaromir Jagr	2000-2001	95	81	52	121
Joe Sakic	2000-2001	93	82	54	118
Joe Thornton	2002-2003	87	77	36	101
Markus Naslund	2002-2003	82	82	48	104
Peter Forsberg	2002-2003	70	75	29	106
Jaromir Jagr	2005-2006	101	82	54	123
Joe Thornton	2005-2006	99	81	29	125
Alex Ovechkin	2005-2006	88	81	52	106
Daniel Alfredsson	2005-2006	86	77	43	103
Sidney Crosby	2005-2006	83	81	39	102
Eric Staal	2005-2006	77	82	45	100
Dany Heatley	2005-2006	75	82	50	103
Vincent Lecavalier	2006-2007	89	82	52	108
Sidney Crosby	2006-2007	85	79	36	120
Dany Heatley	2006-2007	85	82	50	105
Marian Hossa	2006-2007	76	82	43	100
Joe Thornton	2006-2007	76	82	22	114
Martin St. Louis	2006-2007	74	82	43	102
Joe Sakic	2006-2007	65	82	36	100
Alex Ovechkin	2007-2008	101	82	65	112
Evgeni Malkin	2007-2008	85	82	47	106
Alex Ovechkin	2008-2009	88	79	56	110
Sidney Crosby	2008-2009	84	77	33	103
Evgeni Malkin	2008-2009	82	82	35	113
Alex Ovechkin	2009-2010	87	72	50	109
Sidney Crosby	2009-2010	87	81	51	109
Nicklas Backstrom	2009-2010	75	82	33	101
Henrik Sedin	2009-2010	75	82	29	112
Daniel Sedin	2010-2011	75	82	41	104
Evgeni Malkin	2011-2012	96	75	50	109
Sidney Crosby	2013-2014	70	80	36	104
Patrick Kane	2015-2016	87	82	46	106
Connor McDavid	2016-2017	74	82	30	100
Connor McDavid	2017-2018	90	82	41	108
Nikita Kucherov	2017-2018	72	80	39	100
Claude Giroux	2017-2018	67	82	34	102

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

Holy smokes!!!!!. You are the man!. Thanks. Must of taken quite some time to do.
Very interesting read in deed.

Boss makes a dollar I make a dime that's why I did this on company time lol

Constraining myself to 100 point scorers made it a lot easier as there were a lot of players with multiple 100 point seasons. Doing this exercise season by season for the top scorers would probably be a lot more tedious.

Good to know - I didn't realize those game logs existed. I looked up Gordie Howe's 1953 season out of curiosity (arguably the greatest NHL season through the league's first fifty years). Just 10 of his 95 points were secondary - so he scored 85 primary points during a 70 game schedule, during a very low-scoring era. Incredible!

Yeah, that was the coolest find. The Hockey Reference scoring logs aren't perfect (they do not include game score data) but they are great. Another thing I wanted to do is check points together for two players though it is probably too tedious to manually use the scoring logs for this for any large set (the goal finder omits assists together on a goal).

great work. ill keep my eyes open for when someone also isloates ES points from this!

I was thinking of doing this but it would have been too tedious to do so manually. When I finally get my NHL statsapi program working this will be one of the things I will try to look for. I think that powerplay second assists in general are more indicative of offensive involvement than even strength second assists in general.

I think what is also interesting is the highest and lowest percentage of assists that were first assists.

Quite a bit of variation here, with some guys having primary assists as about 75% of their total assists, and others barely more than 55%. And this is only among guys with at least 100 primary points. If we did this for guys with 100 overall points, I suspect we might get some seasons where a guy had more secondary assists than primary assists.

Here are all 100 point seasons that had the same or more second assists than first assists (sorted by highest second assists):

name	season	primary points	games played	first assists	second assists
Bobby Orr	1970-1971	86	78	49	53
Bobby Orr	1974-1975	85	80	39	50
Mark Recchi	1990-1991	67	78	27	46
Paul Coffey	1984-1985	76	80	39	45
Brian Leetch	1991-1992	62	80	40	40
Al MacInnis	1990-1991	64	78	36	39
Denis Potvin	1978-1979	63	73	32	38
Joe Sakic	2006-2007	65	82	29	35
Claude Giroux	2017-2018	67	82	33	35
Bernie Federko	1983-1984	73	79	32	34
Sidney Crosby	2013-2014	70	80	34	34
Brett Hull	1992-1993	72	80	18	29
Mark Messier	1982-1983	77	77	29	29
Dany Heatley	2005-2006	75	82	25	28
Jari Kurri	1986-1987	80	79	26	28
Jacques Richard	1980-1981	77	78	25	26
Brett Hull	1991-1992	88	73	18	21

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

 

[morehockeystats]

Good to know - I didn't realize those game logs existed. I looked up Gordie Howe's 1953 season out of curiosity (arguably the greatest NHL season through the league's first fifty years). Just 10 of his 95 points were secondary - so he scored 85 primary points during a 70 game schedule, during a very low-scoring era. Incredible!

The game logs are available from the first season on. Have been for about a year, I think. I use as much data as possible in my website, and some pages on it stretch all the way back to 1917/18.

One incomplete thing there is, penalty times are missing until somewhere in 194x.

 

[Vanzig]

Gretzky had 12 primary seasons, double to the next guy, plus he had 181 primary points INCREDIBLE and GREAT work

 

[Wings4Life]

I have been wanting to gather all the boxscore data throughout the history of the NHL for a long time now but the data has never been readily available until recently. It is now available through the NHL statsapi but I hate computers and suck at using them (despite being a product manager in tech lolol) so gathering that data has been going slowly for me (if anyone knows how to wait for all asynchronous calls to complete before taking the next action in Swift please hit me up). What I have noticed is that there are enough games in many older seasons straight up missing in the NHL statsapi even now and it would be too tedious to manually get the missing data from newspapers or the Hockey Summary Project.

So I'm still waiting on getting all of the boxscore data but recently I checked out Hockey Reference and saw that they had expanded their scoring logs to the 1987-1988 season (before they only used to have scoring logs from the 2005-2006 season and then they put playoff scoring logs for seasons before that). This was super cool but I found something even cooler: you can get scoring logs for seasons even before 1987-1988 as all you have to do is change the season in the URL manually (Gordie Howe 1968-69 Scoring Log | Hockey-Reference.com). This works back to at least the 1968-1969 season for some players at least (I don't know if the data is complete or fully accurate before 1987-1988 but it seemed to check out in all the examples I used).

Now the scoring logs don't contain full boxscore data and it is against the terms of service to go and scrape the site so I can't use it for everything I had in mind but I did go through and check on something I had always wondered about: second assists affecting scoring.

There has been a lot of talk recently about second assists. Sometimes I think it would have been better if hockey awarded assists like basketball (the issues with subjective scorekeeping exist for other stats as well). While I do think that there are other factors to consider in drawing conclusions from points many of which may be more important (player role/team style/linemates/teammates/era/coaching/opponent factors/position) my guess is that primary points in general offer a better indication of direct offensive involvement than points alone just as points in general offer a better indication of direct offensive involvement than on ice goals for.

I ended up choosing 100 points as a benchmark (arbitrary but still a commonly used milestone) and checked the numbers of every player with a 100 point season.

This was done manually so there may be errors in transcription. Any corrections are appreciated.

Please note that I did not attempt to correct for any issues in actually granting assists. Sometimes assists are granted when they should not be (even though apparently it was technically not necessary to touch the puck to get an assist at least as late as 1992-1993 and maybe even later) and sometimes the scorers incorrectly award assists though recently it appears that the NHL fixes these issues more.

So here are the 100 primary point scorers:

name	season	primary points	games played	goals	points
Wayne Gretzky	1981-1982	181	80	92	212
Wayne Gretzky	1983-1984	177	74	87	205
Wayne Gretzky	1984-1985	171	80	73	208
Wayne Gretzky	1985-1986	164	80	52	215
Wayne Gretzky	1982-1983	164	80	71	196
Mario Lemieux	1988-1989	155	76	85	199
Wayne Gretzky	1986-1987	154	79	62	183
Wayne Gretzky	1980-1981	129	80	55	164
Mario Lemieux	1987-1988	127	77	70	168
Mario Lemieux	1995-1996	125	70	69	161
Mario Lemieux	1992-1993	124	60	69	160
Steve Yzerman	1988-1989	124	80	65	155
Wayne Gretzky	1990-1991	122	78	41	163
Phil Esposito	1970-1971	122	78	76	152
Bernie Nicholls	1988-1989	121	79	70	150
Pat LaFontaine	1992-1993	121	84	53	148
Wayne Gretzky	1988-1989	120	78	54	168
Mike Bossy	1981-1982	117	80	64	147
Phil Esposito	1973-1974	117	78	68	145
Dennis Maruk	1981-1982	116	80	60	136
Wayne Gretzky	1987-1988	114	64	40	149
Marcel Dionne	1979-1980	113	80	53	137
Pierre Turgeon	1992-1993	113	83	58	132
Brett Hull	1990-1991	113	78	86	131
Mario Lemieux	1985-1986	112	79	48	141
Jaromir Jagr	1995-1996	111	82	62	149
Guy Lafleur	1976-1977	111	80	56	136
Peter Stastny	1981-1982	110	80	46	139
Steve Yzerman	1992-1993	110	84	58	137
Jari Kurri	1984-1985	110	73	71	135
Guy Lafleur	1977-1978	110	78	60	132
Kent Nilsson	1980-1981	110	80	49	131
Dale Hawerchuk	1984-1985	109	80	53	130
Phil Esposito	1971-1972	108	76	66	133
Jari Kurri	1985-1986	108	78	68	131
Denis Savard	1987-1988	107	80	44	131
Adam Oates	1992-1993	106	84	45	142
Teemu Selanne	1992-1993	106	84	76	132
Phil Esposito	1972-1973	106	78	55	130
Bryan Trottier	1978-1979	105	76	47	134
Alexander Mogilny	1992-1993	105	77	76	127
Mike Bossy	1985-1986	105	80	61	123
Michel Goulet	1983-1984	105	75	56	122
Paul Coffey	1985-1986	104	79	48	138
Mario Lemieux	1991-1992	104	64	44	131
Steve Yzerman	1989-1990	104	79	62	127
Wayne Gretzky	1989-1990	103	73	40	142
Phil Esposito	1974-1975	103	79	61	127
Phil Esposito	1968-1969	103	74	49	126
Marcel Dionne	1980-1981	102	80	58	135
Mike Bossy	1978-1979	102	80	69	126
Mike Bossy	1984-1985	102	76	58	117
Marcel Dionne	1978-1979	101	80	59	130
Mark Messier	1989-1990	101	79	45	129
Jaromir Jagr	2005-2006	101	82	54	123
Mike Bossy	1980-1981	101	79	68	119
Alex Ovechkin	2007-2008	101	82	65	112
Wayne Gretzky	1979-1980	100	79	51	137
Guy Lafleur	1979-1980	100	74	50	125
Sergei Fedorov	1993-1994	100	82	56	120
Mike Bossy	1982-1983	100	79	60	118

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

There are 27 players who had 61 100 primary point seasons (compared to 109 players who had 276 100 point seasons)

The first 100 primary point season was in 1968-1969 and the last in 2007-2008 (compared to the first 100 point season in 1968-69 and the last in 2017-2018)

There were no 100 primary point seasons in:

• 1917-1918 to 1967-1968
• 1969-1970
• 1975-1976
• 1994-1995
• 1997-1998 to 2003-2004
• 2006-2007
• 2008-2009 to 2017-2018

(compared to no 100 point seasons in 1917-1918 to 1967-1968 / 1994-1995 / 1999-2000 / 2001-2002 / 2003-2004 / 2012-2013 / 2014-2015)

The season with the most number of 100 primary point seasons was 1992-1993 with 8 (compared to the most number of 100 point seasons being 1992-1993 with 21)

There are 9 players who had multiple 100 primary point seasons:

• Wayne Gretzky 12
• Mike Bossy 6
• Phil Esposito 6
• Mario Lemieux 6
• Marcel Dionne 3
• Guy Lafleur 3
• Steve Yzerman 3
• Jaromir Jagr 2
• Jari Kurri 2

(compared to 58 players with multiple 100 point seasons)

Highest number of points in a season without it being a 100 primary point season:

• Bobby Orr 1970-1971 139 points (86 primary points)

Lowest number of points in a season with it being a 100 primary point season:

• Alex Ovechkin 2007-2008 112 points (101 primary points)

Players with all 100 point seasons also being 100 primary point seasons:

• Phil Esposito 6
• Dennis Maruk 1 (only player to hit 100 primary points and 100 points in just one season)

Players with the most 100 point seasons and no 100 primary point seasons:

• Bobby Orr 6
• Joe Sakic 6

Highest primary point percentage of 100 primary point seasons:

• Alex Ovechkin 2007-2008 90.18% (only one to be over 90%)

Highest primary point percentage of 100 point seasons:

• Alex Ovechkin 2007-2008 90.18% (only one to be over 90%)

Lowest primary point percentage of 100 primary point seasons:

• Wayne Gretzky 1988-1989 71.43%

Lowest primary point percentage of 100 point seasons:

• Mark Recchi 1990-1991 59.29% (only one to be less than 60%)

Highest first assist total:

• Wayne Gretzky 1985-1986 113 (only player and season to have 100 primary points by just first assists compared to 3 players with 13 100 point seasons with 100 assists)

Lowest first assist total:

• Brett Hull 1990-1991 27 (Brett Hull 1991-1992 had 18 first assists which is lowest among 100 point seasons)

Highest second assist total:

• Wayne Gretzky 1985-1986 51 (Bobby Orr 1970-1971 had 53 second assists which is highest among 100 point seasons)

Lowest second assist total:

• Alex Ovechkin 1985-1986 11 (Charlie Simmer 1980-1981 also had 11 second assists which is tied lowest among 100 point seasons)

Primary points among 100 point seasons by defensemen:

• Paul Coffey 1985-1986 104 (only player and season to have 100 primary points as a defenseman)
• Bobby Orr 1970-1971 86
• Paul Coffey 1988-1989 86
• Bobby Orr 1974-1975 85
• Paul Coffey 1983-1984 85
• Bobby Orr 1969-1970 84
• Bobby Orr 1973-1974 78
• Paul Coffey 1984-1985 76
• Bobby Orr 1971-1972 74
• Paul Coffey 1989-1990 71
• Bobby Orr 1972-1973 68
• Al MacInnis 1990-1991 64
• Denis Potvin 1978-1979 63
• Brian Leetch 1991-1992 62 (lowest primary points among 100 point seasons)

Just missed 100 primary points in a season:

• Bryan Trottier 1981-1982 99
• Joe Thornton 2005-2006 99
• Mark Recchi 1992-1993 99
• Mario Lemieux 1996-1997 99
• Marcel Dionne 1974-1975 99
• Brett Hull 1989-1990 99

Lowest primary points among 100 point seasons (forwards only):

• Peter Forsberg 2002-2003 70
• Sidney Crosby 2013-2014 70
• Peter Stastny 1984-1985 70
• Ron Francis 1992-1993 70
• Jaromir Jagr 1997-1998 69
• Doug Weight 1995-1996 68
• Joe Juneau 1992-1993 68
• Mark Recchi 1990-1991 67
• Claude Giroux 2017-2018 67
• Joe Sakic 2006-2007 65

Primary point scoring leader different than scoring leader:

• 1974-1975: Phil Esposito (Bobby Orr)
• 1989-1990: Steve Yzerman (Wayne Gretzky)
• 1993-1994: Sergei Fedorov (Wayne Gretzky)
• 2005-2006: Jaromir Jagr (Joe Thornton)

(these are the confirmed cases due to checking every 100 point season there are definitely others (2002-2003 / 2006-2007 / 2009-2010 are confirmed to have a different scoring leader but more players who did not score 100 points need to be checked to confirm who is the primary point scoring leader)

More proof that prime Fedorov > prime Forsberg.

 

[BLNY]

While I appreciate the efforts, there are a great many plays that are considered "secondary points/assists" that are the most crucial part of the goal scoring play. A point is a point is, and should be, the point.

 

[bobbyking]

Ovi... wow

 

[Troubadour]

More proof that prime Fedorov > prime Forsberg.

More proof that prime Fedorov scored more goals than prime Forsberg. Not that we needed it.

This stat obviously favors goalscorers.

 

[Wings4Life]

More proof that prime Fedorov scored more goals than prime Forsberg. Not that we needed it.

This stat obviously favors goalscorers.

He also scored more primary assists.

 

[Troubadour]

He also scored more primary assists.

Well, if you're comparing Fedorov's best primary point season with Forsberg's worst primary point season, then yeah, Sergei beats Forsberg by 3 primary assists in 7 more games

Not sure if this proves your theory though. Seems more like the opposite.

 

[Leafblooded]

Gretzky confirmed GOAT
Ovi gonna finish up top 5, that 90 percent stat is ludicrous

 

[tabness]

Just in case people were unaware it looks like NHL website now has a stats report with first and second assist information that seems to now be complete.

Just use the Scoring per Game report:
NHL.com Stats

 

[morehockeystats]

Just in case people were unaware it looks like NHL website now has a stats report with first and second assist information that seems to now be complete.

Just use the Scoring per Game report:
NHL.com Stats

They still haven't figured the TOI thingy.

 

[RageQuit77]

Great work!

While I appreciate the efforts, there are a great many plays that are considered "secondary points/assists" that are the most crucial part of the goal scoring play. A point is a point is, and should be, the point.

While I appreciate the comment being true in some this or that individual scoring situation, that is not the case with wide statistical data set. Goals, 1st assists and 2nd assists are no equally "point" over the whole set. If a goal is set as 1 point, then 1st assist is on average something like 0.54-0.56 points, and 2nd assist on average 0.1-0.19 with declining lower end value. Unsystematic nature of awarding 2nd assists particularly make it pretty much statistical haze.

A point is a point is, and should be, that statistically different "points" should be handled as such. As crude proxy of offensive contribution the currently used system fails exactly because it sums up different kind things with different value under same label "points", also awarding such points using arbitrary and incomplete criteria.

Many derived stats using crude, false category of "points" as their feed get false, inaccurate data as their feed due failures even in this very basic level of hockey statistic, and as such lose a lot of their meaning, accuracy and value as good tools of evaluation of a player. Serious errors come in already to formulas only because of that, affecting to output too.

With "primary point" statistical category at least worst aspects of failure of the system are remedied i.e. making better proxy/tool for evaluation of an offensive contribution, allowing much more accurate comparisons between players.

For example, 60G+25A1+15A2= 100Pts isn't obviously same as 5G+50A1+45A2=100Pts, but still people claim routinely that they can make meaningful comparisons between players having such different kinds of quality in point scores.

---

Happy for things are finally changing. Future is here!

 

[morehockeystats]

Great work!
For example, 60G+25A1+15A2= 100Pts isn't obviously same as 5G+50A1+45A2=100Pts, but still people claim routinely that they can make meaningful comparisons between players having such different kinds of quality in point scores.

---

Happy for things are finally changing. Future is here!

Hockey is not about scoring points, it's about winning games, and four playoff series at the end of the season. So if the team of player2 won the Shiny Thingy...

 

[RageQuit77]

Hockey is not about scoring points, it's about winning games, and four playoff series at the end of the season. So if the team of player2 won the Shiny Thingy...

In hockey you need score AT LEAST one more goal than opposing team to WIN in a game. Minimum winning condition in a game of hockey is 1-0. Someone must physically do that. Ice ballet with a puck without scoring a goal would be nice to see, but it wouldn't be hockey.

Same apply to playoffs hockey. No disagreement here.

A team wherein are no goal scoring player(s) cannot ever win a single game (under normal conditions, not including out-of-hockey punishments and forfeits), and without a goal there are no guys to be awarded with 1st or 2nd assist either. In 100% of example cases that compose the entire historical data set of game statistics of the Game of Hockey. No disagreements here.

ADD: I can understand if people argue for things being bad or not good as they could be. I don't understand why anyone would argue against clear improvements in statistics of hockey, as if and when the game of hockey is about winning as a team, why anyone should even bother to count something like individual stats, including points. Answer to that is obvious, but it isn't that obvious why counting is continued to be made in way that doesn't allow better statistics for comparisons, even if and when this is what is widely desired goal and even more widely utilized mean for such things. If there are no need to statistically analyze a player in comparison to another, then there are no need for individual stats either. This clearly isn't the case, nor desire.