100 Primary Points

I have been wanting to gather all the boxscore data throughout the history of the NHL for a long time now but the data has never been readily available until recently. It is now available through the NHL statsapi but I hate computers and suck at using them (despite being a product manager in tech lolol) so gathering that data has been going slowly for me (if anyone knows how to wait for all asynchronous calls to complete before taking the next action in Swift please hit me up). What I have noticed is that there are enough games in many older seasons straight up missing in the NHL statsapi even now and it would be too tedious to manually get the missing data from newspapers or the Hockey Summary Project.

So I'm still waiting on getting all of the boxscore data but recently I checked out Hockey Reference and saw that they had expanded their scoring logs to the 1987-1988 season (before they only used to have scoring logs from the 2005-2006 season and then they put playoff scoring logs for seasons before that). This was super cool but I found something even cooler: you can get scoring logs for seasons even before 1987-1988 as all you have to do is change the season in the URL manually (Gordie Howe 1968-69 Scoring Log | Hockey-Reference.com). This works back to at least the 1968-1969 season for some players at least (I don't know if the data is complete or fully accurate before 1987-1988 but it seemed to check out in all the examples I used).

Now the scoring logs don't contain full boxscore data and it is against the terms of service to go and scrape the site so I can't use it for everything I had in mind but I did go through and check on something I had always wondered about: second assists affecting scoring.

There has been a lot of talk recently about second assists. Sometimes I think it would have been better if hockey awarded assists like basketball (the issues with subjective scorekeeping exist for other stats as well). While I do think that there are other factors to consider in drawing conclusions from points many of which may be more important (player role/team style/linemates/teammates/era/coaching/opponent factors/position) my guess is that primary points in general offer a better indication of direct offensive involvement than points alone just as points in general offer a better indication of direct offensive involvement than on ice goals for.

I ended up choosing 100 points as a benchmark (arbitrary but still a commonly used milestone) and checked the numbers of every player with a 100 point season.

This was done manually so there may be errors in transcription. Any corrections are appreciated.

Please note that I did not attempt to correct for any issues in actually granting assists. Sometimes assists are granted when they should not be (even though apparently it was technically not necessary to touch the puck to get an assist at least as late as 1992-1993 and maybe even later) and sometimes the scorers incorrectly award assists though recently it appears that the NHL fixes these issues more.

So here are the 100 primary point scorers:

There are 27 players who had 61 100 primary point seasons (compared to 109 players who had 276 100 point seasons)

The first 100 primary point season was in 1968-1969 and the last in 2007-2008 (compared to the first 100 point season in 1968-69 and the last in 2017-2018)

There were no 100 primary point seasons in:

• 1917-1918 to 1967-1968
• 1969-1970
• 1975-1976
• 1994-1995
• 1997-1998 to 2003-2004
• 2006-2007
• 2008-2009 to 2017-2018

(compared to no 100 point seasons in 1917-1918 to 1967-1968 / 1994-1995 / 1999-2000 / 2001-2002 / 2003-2004 / 2012-2013 / 2014-2015)

The season with the most number of 100 primary point seasons was 1992-1993 with 8 (compared to the most number of 100 point seasons being 1992-1993 with 21)

There are 9 players who had multiple 100 primary point seasons:

• Wayne Gretzky 12
• Mike Bossy 6
• Phil Esposito 6
• Mario Lemieux 6
• Marcel Dionne 3
• Guy Lafleur 3
• Steve Yzerman 3
• Jaromir Jagr 2
• Jari Kurri 2

(compared to 58 players with multiple 100 point seasons)

Highest number of points in a season without it being a 100 primary point season:

• Bobby Orr 1970-1971 139 points (86 primary points)

Lowest number of points in a season with it being a 100 primary point season:

• Alex Ovechkin 2007-2008 112 points (101 primary points)

Players with all 100 point seasons also being 100 primary point seasons:

• Phil Esposito 6
• Dennis Maruk 1 (only player to hit 100 primary points and 100 points in just one season)

Players with the most 100 point seasons and no 100 primary point seasons:

• Bobby Orr 6
• Joe Sakic 6

Highest primary point percentage of 100 primary point seasons:

• Alex Ovechkin 2007-2008 90.18% (only one to be over 90%)

Highest primary point percentage of 100 point seasons:

• Alex Ovechkin 2007-2008 90.18% (only one to be over 90%)

Lowest primary point percentage of 100 primary point seasons:

• Wayne Gretzky 1988-1989 71.43%

Lowest primary point percentage of 100 point seasons:

• Mark Recchi 1990-1991 59.29% (only one to be less than 60%)

Highest first assist total:

• Wayne Gretzky 1985-1986 113 (only player and season to have 100 primary points by just first assists compared to 3 players with 13 100 point seasons with 100 assists)

Lowest first assist total:

• Brett Hull 1990-1991 27 (Brett Hull 1991-1992 had 18 first assists which is lowest among 100 point seasons)

Highest second assist total:

• Wayne Gretzky 1985-1986 51 (Bobby Orr 1970-1971 had 53 second assists which is highest among 100 point seasons)

Lowest second assist total:

• Alex Ovechkin 1985-1986 11 (Charlie Simmer 1980-1981 also had 11 second assists which is tied lowest among 100 point seasons)

Primary points among 100 point seasons by defensemen:

• Paul Coffey 1985-1986 104 (only player and season to have 100 primary points as a defenseman)
• Bobby Orr 1970-1971 86
• Paul Coffey 1988-1989 86
• Bobby Orr 1974-1975 85
• Paul Coffey 1983-1984 85
• Bobby Orr 1969-1970 84
• Bobby Orr 1973-1974 78
• Paul Coffey 1984-1985 76
• Bobby Orr 1971-1972 74
• Paul Coffey 1989-1990 71
• Bobby Orr 1972-1973 68
• Al MacInnis 1990-1991 64
• Denis Potvin 1978-1979 63
• Brian Leetch 1991-1992 62 (lowest primary points among 100 point seasons)

Just missed 100 primary points in a season:

• Bryan Trottier 1981-1982 99
• Joe Thornton 2005-2006 99
• Mark Recchi 1992-1993 99
• Mario Lemieux 1996-1997 99
• Marcel Dionne 1974-1975 99
• Brett Hull 1989-1990 99

Lowest primary points among 100 point seasons (forwards only):

• Peter Forsberg 2002-2003 70
• Sidney Crosby 2013-2014 70
• Peter Stastny 1984-1985 70
• Ron Francis 1992-1993 70
• Jaromir Jagr 1997-1998 69
• Doug Weight 1995-1996 68
• Joe Juneau 1992-1993 68
• Mark Recchi 1990-1991 67
• Claude Giroux 2017-2018 67
• Joe Sakic 2006-2007 65

Primary point scoring leader different than scoring leader:

• 1974-1975: Phil Esposito (Bobby Orr)
• 1989-1990: Steve Yzerman (Wayne Gretzky)
• 1993-1994: Sergei Fedorov (Wayne Gretzky)
• 2005-2006: Jaromir Jagr (Joe Thornton)

(these are the confirmed cases due to checking every 100 point season there are definitely others (2002-2003 / 2006-2007 / 2009-2010 are confirmed to have a different scoring leader but more players who did not score 100 points need to be checked to confirm who is the primary point scoring leader)