Are the NHL’s Stars Pulling Away From Everyone Else?

Gretzky’s margins are still the six biggest

The 215 is the famous number. The gap behind it is the stranger one. In 1985-86 Gretzky had 52 goals and 163 assists, and finished 74 points ahead of Lemieux. Two seasons earlier he had been further out still: 205 points in 74 games, 87 of them goals, 2.77 a game. Paul Coffey was second in the league with 126, 79 points back, the widest first-to-second margin in NHL history.

Raw points flatter high-scoring eras and long schedules. So we set the leader beside the nine scorers behind him, per game, counting only regulars, the players who dressed for at least half the schedule. Take 1983-84. Gretzky scored 2.77 points a game. The next nine averaged 1.56. He was going 1.77 times as fast as they were, the biggest lead in any NHL season since 1917-18. His 1981-82 to 1986-87 seasons fill the first six places. The leader on this list is the man with the best rate. Usually that is the scoring champion. Not always. Nothing here adjusts for era: every season is compared only with itself. For who was better across eras, see the NHL GOAT series.

Only two other players come close. Lemieux’s 199 points in 1988-89 rank 9th, and his 1992-93, 160 points in 60 games at 2.67 a game, ranks 7th. Before the 1980s, the closest anyone came was Gordie Howe in 1952-53: 95 points to Ted Lindsay’s 71, 8th on the list.

The runaway leader faded, and hit bottom in 2014-15

After Lemieux, the gaps shrank. Jaromir Jagr won four straight scoring titles from 1997-98, and his widest, 127 points to Teemu Selanne’s 107 in 1998-99, ranks only 51st. In 2003-04 Martin St. Louis led with 94. Through the 2000s the leader scored, on average, 1.18 times as fast as the next nine. In the 1980s it had been 1.62.

The low point came later. On the last Saturday of the 2014-15 season Jamie Benn of the Dallas Stars picked up two points “in the final 125 seconds Saturday night,” as TSN put it, and passed John Tavares for the title, 87 to 86. Sidney Crosby, who had the best rate per game, finished with 84. Benn’s total was “the lowest to lead the NHL since Gordie Howe’s 86 in 1962-63.” By our measure 2014-15 is the tightest scoring race since 1931-32: Crosby scored only 1.06 times as fast as the next nine.

The dashed lines mark how far bounces alone can push a race. A season that lands between them could have come out that way by luck alone, given who was playing. Since 2000-01, 23 of 25 seasons land between them. 2003-04 and 2014-15 fall below: those races came out tighter than the replays usually did.

McDavid’s best seasons still fall well short of Gretzky’s best

This story began as a hunch that McDavid had brought the runaway leader back. His 25-point margin in 2022-23 was, by an NHL release, the largest first-to-second margin since 1990-91. Per game, it shrinks. McDavid scored 1.35 times as fast as the next nine. Gretzky had the league’s best rate in nine seasons from 1980-81 to 1990-91, and eight of them beat that. Only his 1980-81, at 1.34, comes in lower. McDavid’s widest lead came in the 56-game 2020-21 season: 105 points to Leon Draisaitl’s 84, or 1.45 times the next nine. That ranks 17th since 1931-32.

Step back to whole eras and the McDavid years look like the 2000s. Since 2015-16 the leader has averaged 1.22 times the next nine. In the 2000s it was 1.18. That +0.04 could be luck. Throw the 20 seasons from both eras in a hat and deal them into piles of 9 and 11 at random: about 4 in 10 deals split the piles by that much. The fall from the 1980s is another matter. Those leaders averaged 1.62. The drop of 0.44 to the 2000s came up in fewer than 1 in 1,000 random deals. That is too big to be luck.

Take the luck out and no era moves much. The 1980s still tower over the rest. Since 1997-98, only three leaders have scored 1.40 times as fast as the next nine or more, and every one did it in a short sample. One was McDavid’s 56-game season. One was Crosby in 2010-11, 66 points in 41 games. The third is the strangest season in the list.

On Dec. 27, 2000, Lemieux came back. NHL.com’s account: “After 44 months in retirement, during which he is inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame and becomes owner of the Pittsburgh Penguins, Lemieux makes a return for the ages.” He assisted on Jagr’s goal 33 seconds into his first shift and had three points in a 5-0 win over Toronto. He finished with 76 points in 43 games, 1.77 a game, the best rate in the league, while Jagr (121) and Joe Sakic (118) fought over the scoring title. Half a season makes a lead look bigger than it is, because a hot streak is easier to keep up over 43 games than over a full schedule. So we nudge every player’s rate part of the way toward the average for his position, and further for anyone with few games. Lemieux’s lead then shrinks from 1.41 to 1.35 times the next nine.

Replay the seasons and nearly half the leaders lose their lead

Some of those leads were also luck. Crosby had the best scoring rate in the league in 2014-15, by a hair, and the hair did not hold. A single scoring race is a small sample, and a few bounces can decide a title by a point. To see how much of each leader’s margin was skill, we replayed every season 2,000 times with the same players. Each regular played his real number of games at his own scoring rate. Every rate was nudged part of the way toward the average for his position, and further for players with few games, because a short hot run tells you less than a full season. Then we counted how often the real per-game leader came out on top again. Crosby did in only 18% of the replays of his season.

Gretzky’s runaways were nothing like that. None of his seasons from 1981-82 to 1986-87 fell below 99.5%. In 44 of the 94 seasons since 1931-32, though, the real leader wins fewer than half the replays. McDavid’s 2022-23 held up (84%), and so did his 2020-21 (89%), but neither was luck-proof.

The next season tells the same story. When the leader scored less than 1.2 times the next nine’s rate, he led again the following year 29% of the time (9 of 31). When it was 1.4 or more, he led again 56% of the time (15 of 27). Big leads tend to be talent. Small ones are mostly the bounces.

The stars pulled away again, as a group

So no single star has pulled away. One step down the list, something did change. Take the top 1% of regulars, six or so players in today’s 32-team league. Set them beside the typical regular, the man in the middle of the scoring list. In 2014-15 the top 1% scored 1.06 points a game. The typical regular scored 0.38. That is 2.81 times as much. By 2023-24 the top 1% were at 1.55 a game and the typical regular at 0.39: 3.95 times, the highest since 1995-96.

The top 1% had pulled away again. From 2020-21 to 2025-26 they averaged 3.78 times the typical regular’s rate, up from 3.21 in 2010-11 to 2014-15. That is about where the stars sat in the 1980s (3.63) and the 1990s (3.83). No higher. The rise is +0.57, over 5 and 6 seasons. Nine times in ten, the true rise sits somewhere from +0.38 to +0.77. Deal those 11 seasons into piles of 5 and 6 at random, and only about 2 in 1,000 deals produce a jump that big. Too big to be luck. It rests on one shift that started around 2020, though, so it says nothing about where the next few seasons go.

On the chart the solid line climbs after 2020. The dashed line, even-strength points only, climbs less. And the change is at the very top. Line up every regular, from the stars down to the fourth-liners, and score how evenly the points are spread, the way economists score incomes with a number called the Gini. A league where the fourth-liner scores as often as the star would read 0. A league where one man has every point would read 1. NHL regulars read 0.33 in 2010-15 and 0.33 since 2020. No change. By that broader count the most uneven stretch since 1931-32 ran from the early 1990s through the 2000s. Set the stars beside a very good regular instead, one who outscores nine in ten of the others, and they still gained on him, just by less.

More of the stars’ edge comes on the power play

Much of that gain runs through the power play. Back in 2014-15, a month before Benn’s late finish, John Tavares had pointed at how games were being called, TSN noted in its story on Benn’s title. “For me, that obviously takes away some power-play opportunities,” he said.

He had a point. Power plays have become scarcer (our power-play story has the numbers), and what is left tilts further toward the stars. In the 2000s the league’s top ten scorers got 38.3% of their points on the power play. Everyone else got 29.7%. Since 2015-16 it is 32.9% for the top ten and 21.8% for the rest. Both fell. The rest fell further.

Look at the space between the two lines. A top-ten scorer’s points now come on the power play 1.51 times as often as other regulars’ do. In the 1980s it was 1.25, in the 2000s 1.29. Deal the 2000s and recent seasons at random and fewer than 1 in 1,000 deals match that rise. Too big to be luck. McDavid’s 153 in 2022-23 included 71 power-play points. Now count only even-strength points. The top 1% gained just +0.22 on the typical regular since 2010-15, and about 15 in 100 random deals match that. That could be chance. The data cannot say why the top units get more of the power play. Ice time by player is published only from 1997-98, and that question needs its own study.

What it means for the next scoring race

• Expect close scoring races. In about half the seasons since 1997-98, the real per-game leader wins fewer than half of the replays.
• A leader who is far ahead per game, over a full season, usually leads again. A narrow winner usually doesn’t.
• The gap between the stars and the typical player is real and recent. Much of it runs through the power play.

The 2025-26 title was close to a coin flip

Last season showed both halves of the answer in one race. In 2025-26 McDavid won his sixth scoring title, 138 points to Nikita Kucherov’s 130, with Nathan MacKinnon third at 127. The NHL’s release called it a scoring race won “by an eight-point margin.” Kucherov played 76 games to McDavid’s 82, and per game he was ahead, 1.71 to 1.68.

Replay that season 2,000 times and Kucherov finishes first per game in 43% of them, McDavid in 37%. Close to a coin flip.

Replay Gretzky’s 1983-84 the same way and he wins 2,000 of 2,000. Nobody, McDavid included, has opened a lead that wide since. The elite tier came back instead. The league’s best scorers, as a group, sit about as far above the typical player as the 1980s stars did, and the power play does much of the lifting. Last season they just couldn’t get away from each other.

Show the work

Tests written down

Not in advance (exploratory)

Results computed

October 26, 2026

Every NHL regular season from 1917-18 to 2025-26 (108 seasons) from the NHL’s skater and team season totals. A regular played at least half the season’s longest team schedule, so short seasons scale. Leader gap: the top regular’s points per game ÷ the mean of regulars ranked 2 to 10; also checked against ranks 2 to 30, against No. 2 alone, and against the top 5% and top 2.5% of regulars (fair across league sizes). Top tier: the top 1% of regulars (fractional last player) vs the median regular, the 90th-percentile regular and in share of all regulars’ rates; Gini across regulars. Luck benchmark: a gamma-Poisson prior per season, fitted separately for forwards and defencemen, shrinks each regular’s rate by his games; each season is replayed 2,000 times (seeded) at those rates with each player’s real games. Era means have 90% bootstrap ranges; era differences use 10,000-shuffle permutation tests and bootstrap ranges of the difference (a permutation p is the share of random shuffles of the seasons between the two eras that give a difference this large). The main charts and ranks start in 1931-32 because assists were sparse before: 14 earlier seasons averaged 0.58 assists per goal (0.42 in 1917-18; 1.05 in 1931-32).

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All How Hockey Changed research →

Keep reading

• How Hockey Changed: NHL data stories →One chart-led story a day about how the NHL game, its players and its rules have changed.
• The best power plays ever, and nobody gets one →Power-play chances per game since 1977-78, and why they have nearly halved.
• NHL GOAT series →Every NHL era on one scale: scoring, league strength and opportunity.
• Who is the NHL GOAT? →Era-adjusted scoring since 1917, and why goalie talent compressed.
• NHL player pages →Every current player: stats, lines, ice time and form.

Sources and method

1. NHL stats (NHL.com), every season since 1917-18
2. NHL stats API: skater season totals (points, goals, assists, points by strength), every season since 1917-18
3. Hockey-Reference: Wayne Gretzky 1985-86 game log (April 6, 1986, at Vancouver)
4. OilersNation: Gretzky sets the single-season points record (April 6, 2020)
5. NHL.com: This date in NHL history, December 27 (Lemieux’s return, 2000)
6. TSN: Stars’ Benn is historic Art Ross Trophy winner (April 12, 2015)
7. NHL.com: McDavid wins Art Ross and Rocket Richard trophies (April 2023)
8. NHL.com: McDavid wins Art Ross Trophy as the league’s top scorer (April 17, 2026)
9. NHL API reference (community documentation of the stats endpoints)

Research and analysis, not betting advice. Past results do not guarantee future returns; bet only what you can afford to lose.