Will There Be At Least Five 50-Goal Scorers This Season? 2022 NHL Odds, Props

Goalscoring is obviously an essential component to any team having success in the NHL and the 50-goal mark has always been the benchmark of any pure scorer, but it’s a number that is harder to hit than many people realize.

Four players hit the 50-goal plateau last season – Auston Matthews, Leon Draisaitl, Chris Kreider and Alex Ovechkin – but there has been just 200 times in the history of the NHL that a player scored 50 or more goals in a single season.  In fact, only 94 different players have ever hit 50 goals and only 46 of those players did it more than once.

Will there be at least five 50-goal scorers in 2022-23?

Last Season’s 50-Goal Scorers

Auston Matthews (60)

Matthews should have hit the 50-goal mark long before last season, but COVID had other plans for him.  Barring injury, the Toronto sniper seems like the biggest lock to hit 50 in 2022-23.  He’s coming off a career year that saw him one-up the 50-goal mark and actually score 60, resulting in him winning some solid hardware at the NHL awards, including the Rocket Richard, Hart and Ted Lindsay trophies.  Once again playing on the top line of a high scoring Stanley Cup contender should help Matthews elclipse the 50-goal mark for a second straight season.

Leon Draisaitl (55)

Draisaitl is another easy pick to hit 50 in 2022-23.  He’s hit the 50-goal mark twice in his career and likely would have done it three times if not for COVID.  It also doesn’t hurt that he plays with arguably the world’s best player in Connor McDavid.  Draisaitl’s goal tally last season was a career high, but he’s another candidate that could sniff around the 60-goal mark.  The Oilers took a big step forward as a team last season and Draisaitl was and is obviously a big factor in Edmonton’s success.  If the German superstar stays healthy all year, 50 goals is very attainable.

Chris Kreider (52)

No disrespect to Kreider, but he seems like the most likely candidate from last year’s 50-goal scorers to miss the mark this season.  He had an incredible year last season with a career-high 52 goals, but there was definitely a drop-off in his offensive production near the end of the year.  Prior to last year he’s never come close to 50 goals, with his previous career-high set at 28.  Kreider scored 26 goals on the power-play last season with an insane shooting percentage of 39.39 per cent.  Asking him to maintain a shooting percentage of nearly 40 per cent on the power-play again is just not likely.

Alex Ovechkin (50)

Ovechkin is the best pure goalscorer of his generation and while it will be tough, he does have a legitimate shot at breaking Wayne Gretzky’s all-time goal scoring record.  The Great 8 has led the league in scoring nine times and hit the 50-goal mark nine times.  He’s also had near-misses, finishing with 46 goals in 2006-07, 48 in 2019-20 and 49 in 2017-18.  He sits 20 goals short of becoming the third player to ever score 800 career goals and 21 short of tying Gordie Howe for second-most all-time.  With Gretzky’s record on his mind and no signs of slowing down, now is not the time to bet against Ovechkin.

Breakthrough Candidates

Connor McDavid

If you want to know how difficult it is to score 50 goals in the NHL just look at the fact that McDavid, the consensus best hockey player on the planet, has never done it in his career.  He has three 40-goal seasons, including a career-high 44 last year, but the 50-goal plateau has eluded him.  There’s reason to believe that may not be the case this season.  First of all, he’s one of the best hockey players in the world playing on a strong team with one of the other best players in the world in Draisaitl.  But more importantly, last year’s run to the Western Conference Final has to have sparked something in McDavid and the Oilers in general.  Bank on McDavid hitting yet another level this year.

Kirill Kaprizov

Kirill Kaprizov has torched the competition in his two years in the NHL, scoring 27 goals in 55 games in 2020-21 and 47 goals in 81 games last season.  The Russian star finished tied for fifth in goals last season and is still in his prime at 25-years-old.  Over his first two NHL seasons, Kaprizov has an absurd 16.6 shooting percentage.  Consider this, Ovechkin, who as mentioned has led the league in goals nine times, has a career shooting percentage of 12.9 per cent.  It’s not realistic to think Kaprizov’s shooting percentage will always remain as high as it is, but there’s no reason to think it will significantly decline in 2022-23.

Kyle Connor

Kyle Connor’s career-high 47-goal season tied him with Kaprizov for fifth in NHL goal scoring last season.  Since 2017-18, only five players have scored more than Connor’s 176 goals.  Ignoring the COVID-shortened 2020-21 season, last year’s 47 goals marked a continued steady increase for the 25-year-old.  He’s gone from 31 goals, to 34 to 38 to 47.  If that pace continues, 50 goals in within sight this season.