Gordie Howe
Maurice Richard
Stat by stat
Bars are scaled to the leader in this list.
The verdict
Gordie Howe leads 3 of 4 categories. Our all-time ranking places Gordie Howe at #4 and Maurice Richard at #6.
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The case for Gordie Howe
Mr. Hockey combined scoring, toughness and almost supernatural longevity across an astonishing five decades of professional play. Gordie Howe won four Stanley Cups with the Detroit Red Wings, six Hart Trophies as MVP and six Art Ross scoring titles, finishing in the NHL's top five in scoring for 20 consecutive seasons, a record of sustained excellence unmatched in the sport. He retired, then returned at 45 to play alongside his sons in the WHA, and skated one final NHL shift at age 52 in 1980. Howe scored 801 NHL goals and 1,850 points, figures that stood atop the all-time list until Gretzky surpassed them. He was as feared as he was skilled: the Gordie Howe hat trick, a goal, an assist and a fight in one game, immortalizes his willingness to punish anyone who challenged him. Ambidextrous, powerful and endlessly durable, he defined the complete power forward and served as the standard against which every scorer was measured for a generation.
The case for Maurice Richard
The Rocket was hockey's first great goal-scoring folk hero and the fiery soul of the Montreal Canadiens. In 1944-45 Maurice Richard became the first player to score 50 goals in 50 games, a benchmark that stood as the sport's ultimate scoring feat for decades, and in 1957 he became the first to reach 500 career goals. He won eight Stanley Cups, including a record five in a row from 1956 to 1960, and led the Canadiens with a competitive fury that made him a cultural icon in Quebec. His 1955 suspension by the league president sparked the Richard Riot in Montreal, an event now seen as a flashpoint of French-Canadian identity. Richard finished with 544 goals and 966 points in a low-scoring era, and, remarkably, never won a Hart Trophy despite his dominance. From the blue line in he was terrifying, his eyes reportedly blazing as he bore down on goaltenders. The NHL's trophy for its leading goal-scorer bears his name.