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Scoring 50 goals in one season is one of the most celebrated individual achievements in the National Hockey League (NHL). In 1944–45, Maurice Richard became the first player to score 50 goals in a season. Bernie Geoffrion became the second player to reach the milestone 16 years later in 1960–61. Fifty-goal seasons increased in frequency during the 1970s and 1980s as offense increased across the league. By 1980, it had been reached 24 times in NHL history; the plateau was reached 76 times in the 1980s alone.
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Wayne Gretzky scored his 50th goal in his 39th game in 1981–82, the fastest any player has done so. He also shares the record for most 50-goal seasons with Mike Bossy, each having reached the milestone nine times in their careers. A record fourteen players exceeded 50 goals in 1992–93, after which offence declined across the league, and with it the number of players to reach the total. For the first time in 29 years, no player scored 50 goals in 1998–99. Ninety unique players have scored 50 goals in any one NHL season, doing so a combined 186 times.
History
Joe Malone scored 44 goals for the Montreal Canadiens in the NHL's inaugural season of 1917–18—a season with a twenty-game schedule. It was a record that stood nearly 30 years. The introduction of the centre red line and permission of forward passing out of the defensive zone in 1943 increased scoring; six players scored 30 goals in 1943–44, the first time in league history so many players reached that total in one season. Maurice Richard averaged a goal per game for Montreal in 1944–45 and surpassed Malone's record late in the season. He was as obsessed with reaching the 50-goal mark as his opponents were with preventing it. Richard faced opponents who repeatedly elbowed, hooked and held him in an effort to prevent him from reaching 50. As a result, he scored only seven goals in his final 13 games. Richard scored his 50th goal, in 50 games, in the third period of Montreal's final game of the season against the Boston Bruins. The league introduced the Maurice "Rocket" Richard Trophy in his honour in 1999, and the Canadiens donated the physical trophy.
Richard's mark stood untouched for 16 seasons until Bernie Geoffrion became the second player to score 50 goals in 1960–61, also for Montreal, doing so in his 62nd game of the season (and the Canadiens' 68th). Early in the 1960s, Chicago Black Hawks teammates Stan Mikita and Bobby Hull began experimenting with curved blades, noticing that different bends made shots more unpredictable for goaltenders. Mikita led the NHL in scoring four times using a curved blade, while Hull became the third player in NHL history to score 50 goals in 1961–62. It was the first of five times he would reach the milestone.
While playing for Boston in the 1970s, Phil Esposito scored 50 goals in five consecutive seasons, led by a then-NHL record 76 goals in 1970–71. By 1980, 24 players had reached the mark. Mike Bossy of the New York Islanders joined Richard as the second man in NHL history to score 50 goals in 50 games in 1980–81. He did so by scoring two goals in the final five minutes of the Islanders' 50th game. Bossy, who had set a league rookie-scoring record with 53 goals in 1977–78, surpassed the 50-goal mark in each of his first nine NHL seasons. The 1980s represented one of the highest scoring eras in NHL history: on 76 occasions, a player scored 50 goals in a season. Wayne Gretzky was responsible for nine of those seasons, including his league-record 92 goals in 1981–82. In that season, Gretzky scored five goals in his 39th game of the season to total 50, bettering Richard and Bossy by 11 games as the fastest to reach the mark.
A record 14 players scored 50 goals in 1992–93. Among them was Teemu Selanne, who scored 76 goals as a rookie, surpassing Bossy's record for first-year players by 23 goals. Brett Hull, son of Bobby, scored over 50 goals five times in the 1990s, equalling his father's totals in the 1960s. As teams shifted their focus to defensive play rather than offensive, scoring rapidly declined in the late 1990s. No player scored 50 in 1998–99, the first time that had happened in 29 years, excluding the lockout-shortened 1994–95 NHL season.
Only five players reached the 50-goal mark between 1999 and 2004: Pavel Bure, Joe Sakic, Jaromir Jagr, Jarome Iginla, and Milan Hejduk. Following the 2004–05 lockout that cancelled the season, the league introduced numerous rule changes designed to increase scoring. Five players scored 50 in 2005–06; however, the number of players reaching 50 goals has decreased since. Alexander Ovechkin was the only player to do so in 2008–09. Ovechkin scored 50 goals for the fourth time in his career in 2009–10. He was one of three players to reach the mark, joined by Steven Stamkos and Sidney Crosby. Ovechkin alone reached the mark again in 2013–14, 2014–15, and 2015–16.