Wayne Gretzky
Maurice Richard
Stat by stat
Bars are scaled to the leader in this list.
The verdict
Wayne Gretzky leads 2 of 3 categories. Our all-time ranking places Wayne Gretzky at #1 and Maurice Richard at #6.
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The case for Wayne Gretzky
No athlete has dominated a major sport the way The Great One dominated hockey. Gretzky holds more than 60 NHL records, many likely permanent: 2,857 career points, 894 goals and an untouchable 1,963 assists, a total that alone would still lead the all-time scoring list without a single goal. He scored 92 goals in 1981-82 and a staggering 215 points in 1985-86, and posted a 51-game point streak that no one has approached. He won four Stanley Cups with the Edmonton Oilers, nine Hart Trophies as MVP (eight of them consecutive), and ten Art Ross Trophies as scoring champion. His 1988 trade to Los Angeles is often credited with transforming hockey into a genuinely national sport in the United States. Not the fastest skater or the hardest shooter, Gretzky saw the ice a beat ahead of everyone, operating from behind the net, his office, to orchestrate the most prolific offence the sport has known. He is the definitive GOAT, and the gap to second place is the widest in hockey.
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.