Most NHL Goals in a Season

The most goals scored in a single NHL season is 92, by Wayne Gretzky for the Edmonton Oilers in 1981-82. It is the most durable scoring record in hockey: no player has reached even 87 since Gretzky himself, and the best modern effort, Auston Matthews’ 69 in 2023-24, fell 23 short.

Gretzky did not just beat the record, he redrew it. He added 120 assists that year for 212 points, and reached 50 goals in his first 39 games, a separate mark that has also stood untouched for more than 40 years.

The most goals in an NHL season

The top of this list belongs almost entirely to the early 1980s and early 1990s, when leaguewide scoring was far higher than it is today.

Player	Team	Season	Goals
Wayne Gretzky	Edmonton Oilers	1981-82	92
Wayne Gretzky	Edmonton Oilers	1983-84	87
Brett Hull	St. Louis Blues	1990-91	86
Mario Lemieux	Pittsburgh Penguins	1988-89	85
Alexander Mogilny	Buffalo Sabres	1992-93	76
Teemu Selanne	Winnipeg Jets	1992-93	76
Phil Esposito	Boston Bruins	1970-71	76

Gretzky owns the top two spots outright. Brett Hull is the only player other than Gretzky and Lemieux to clear 85, and Selanne’s 76 is the rookie record. Every total above 76 was set before 1992.

Why the record has to be read by era

Gretzky’s 92 came in an 80-game season. The NHL moved to an 82-game schedule in 1995-96, so a modern player has two extra games to work with and still cannot get close. The gap is not about games; it is about the sport.

In the early 1980s the league averaged around eight goals per game across both teams. Goaltending was weaker, equipment smaller, and defensive systems looser. Today the average is closer to six, with bigger goalies and structured defenses built to smother exactly the kind of scoring Gretzky feasted on. Auston Matthews’ 69 in 2023-24 was the most by anyone since Lemieux’s 69 in 1995-96, and it still left him short of even the 76 that sits fifth on the list. Comparing 92 in 1982 to 69 in 2024 without that context misses the point of the record.

The team record: Edmonton’s 446 goals

The single-season goal record has a team version, and the same club holds it. The 1983-84 Edmonton Oilers scored 446 goals in 80 games, an average of 5.58 per game, before winning the first of their Stanley Cups. It broke the record they had set the previous season and has never been approached since.

That team is why Gretzky’s individual totals look almost normal in context: an Oilers side built to score at a rate no modern team comes near. Put the two records together and the early-1980s Oilers hold both the most goals by a player and the most by a team in a single NHL season.

For the players behind records like these, see our ranking of the greatest NHL players, and for the modern earners of the sport, the highest-paid NHL players. As of 2026 Gretzky’s 92 has stood for over 40 years, and with leaguewide scoring nowhere near its 1980s peak, it remains one of the few sports records that looks genuinely out of reach.