According to current statistics, David Pastrňák belongs to the historically best scorers in NHL hockey.
He has completed the basic part of life. In 82 games for Boston, Pastrňák collected 113 points and scored 61 goals. In the voting for the Hart Trophy, he finished right behind the supreme Connor McDavid, so – at least for the moment – he can be called the second best hockey player on the planet.
He has been among the most elite attackers and especially scorers for many years, but this year he surpassed the goal of 50 goals for the first time, thus following Jaromír Jágr and Milan Hejduk from the Czech Republic.
It is a watched act overseas. In some seasons, only a few players reach the 50-goal mark, other times none.
In the entire history of the NHL, the season fifty has been announced a total of 205 times.
But scoring an average of 50 or at least 40 goals a year throughout your career is difficult. So difficult that only 23 hockey players managed it.
A special ranking was provided by the website Adjusted Hockey. It was based on the statistics of the Hockey Reference portal, which, in an effort to fairly compare stars from different eras, take into account the length of the seasons, the size of the lineups or the number of goals per game. It harms, for example, players who started in the 80s, the era of mindless attacking.
The winner of this scoring table was Mario Lemieux, who reached a career average of 55 goals per season. Alexander Ovechkin (54), Auston Matthews and Pavel Bure (both 52) finished behind him.
No one else has beaten fifty. Pastrňák finished eleventh with an average of 43 hits between Maurice Richard, after whom the trophy for the best NHL shooter is named, and Slovakian Žigmund Pálffy.
The 21st place was occupied by the great Wayne Gretzky, who scored the most goals overall (894), but at the end of his long career he mainly recorded and experienced times when 8:6 results were common.
The ranking took into account only hockey players who played at least six seasons, or six times 82 games, according to the mentioned Hockey Reference statistics. It should also be mentioned that this model benefits active players who have not yet experienced a decline in performance, including Pastrňák.
Jágr’s presence in the table escaped just a little, according to Adjusted Hockey, he scored an average of 38 goals per season.
But he was among only sixteen players with an average of at least 95 points per year. He finished 15th, between 1920s and 1930s legend Howie Morenz and current New York Rangers star Artemi Panarin.
Only seven men have broken the 100 mark – Lemieux (136), Gretzky (132), McDavid (125), Sidney Crosby (109), Peter Forsberg (108), Bobby Orr (103) and Evgenij Malkin (100).
The 27-year-old Pastrňák is currently at number 87 in productivity, so he would have to add to at least catch up with Jagr. However, if he does not slow down too much in the established goal pace, he could – at least in relative numbers – end his career as the best Czech scorer in history.
All-time leading NHL players in goals and points by adjusted season average:
