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This is a list of games in which a player has scored five or more goals in a National Hockey League (NHL) game. Scoring five or more goals in a single game is considered a great feat, as it has only been accomplished 60 times, by only 44 players, in the history of the league. The most recent player to do so was Johan Franzen, who scored five goals for the Detroit Red Wings on February 2, 2011, against the Ottawa Senators.
Joe Malone, playing in the early days of the NHL, holds the overall record with five different five-or-more goal games, including the NHL record seven goals in a game, as well as a six-goal game and three five-goal games. Overall, seven different players have scored six goals in a game—including brothers Corb and Cy Denneny, within a few weeks of each other in 1921. A total of 40 individual players have scored exactly five goals in a game, on one or more occasions. While five-goal games continue to occur from time to time, no player has scored six or more goals since Darryl Sittler scored six in February 1976.
Next to Malone's achievement of five different games, both Wayne Gretzky and Mario Lemieux attained the feat four times, Newsy Lalonde did it three times, while four other players have had two five-goal games. Of the 60 different five-goal games, five instances were achieved in a playoff game. Mario Lemieux is the only player in history to achieve a five-goal game by scoring in five different ways – on December 31, 1988, he scored an even-strength goal, a power-play goal, a short-handed goal, a penalty shot goal and an empty net goal.
Of the 44 players to achieve the feat, Ian Turnbull is the only defenseman.