Mika Zibanejad, greatest goal scorer in Rangers history

Goals per game, the real way to measure greatness

When you look at the top goal scoring seasons in the post-expansion NHL with goals per game as the standard, the results are very different.  Mika Zibanejad’s season turns out to be really, really good.  We looked at the top ten goals per game averages for players who scored a minimum of 20 goals in one season for the Rangers.

1.  .731 – Jean Ratelle, 1972 – 46 goals
2.  .720 – Mika Zibanejad, 2020 – 41 goals
3.  .715 – Pierre Larouche, 1986 – 20 goals
4.  .659 – Jaromir Jagr, 2006 – 54 goals
5.  .641 – Vic Hadfield, 1972 – 50 goals
6.  .636 – Mark Messier, 1996 – 47 goals
7.  .625 – Tomas Sandstrom, 1987 – 40 goals
8.  .624 – Pierre Larouche, 1984 – 48 goals
9.  .621 – Mike Gartner, 1991 – 49 goals
10.   .619 – Adam Graves, 1994 – 52 goals

So, only three players in franchise history scored at a pace higher than 0.7 goals per game, all three in shortened seasons.   Ratelle’s broken ankle waylaid his record setting season. COVID-19 stopped Zibanejad in his tracks. Pierre Larouche’s season was disrupted by a vindictive coach.

In 1986, new coach Ted Sator decided to make a statement by demoting a number of key veterans.  Mike Rogers, Glen Hanlon and Nick Fotiu were sent to New Haven and he banished Larouche from the organization, “loaning” him to the Flyers’ farm team in Hershey.   With the season in trouble, Sator recalled Larouche and he scored 20 goals in 28 games to help the team to the Conference Finals where they lost to the eventual Stanley Cup Champion Montreal Canadiens.

By goals per game, Zibanejad’s 2019-20 season is exceeded only by Jean Ratelle’s spectacular 1971-92 season.   But how does the changes in the NHL reflect on those totals?    There’s an argument for Zibanejad’s season to be the best ever.

A changing NHL

The one undeniable fact about records and NHL hockey is that times change.  Just as baseball had the “dead ball” era, hockey’s offensive totals have varied greatly over the years.   This season, the NHL is averaging 5.96 goals per game.   That’s one of the lower numbers in NHL history, but an increase over the early 2010s when both teams averaged about 5.3 goals per game.

Compare that to 1982 when NHL teams averaged 8.03 goals per game. That was the year that Wayne Gretzky scored 92 goals in 80 games.  That’s one reason Pierre Larouche was able to pile up goals for the Rangers.  He played in the highest scoring era in NHL history.

How do the top goal scoring seasons compare?   If you adjust the top post-expansion goal scoring seasons to the offense of the 2019-20 season, here is how it looks.

1.  .720 – Mika Zibanejad, 2020
2.  .711 – Jean Ratelle, 1972
3.   .650 – Jaromir Jagr, 2006
4.   .624 – Vic Hadfield , 1972
5.   .624 – Mike Gartner, 1991
6.   .616 – Marian Gaborik, 2010
7.   .603 – Mark Messier, 1996
8.   .596 – Rick Nash, 2015
9.   .569 – Adam Graves,1994
10.  .560 – Marian Gaborik, 2012
11.  .537 – Pierre Larouche, 1986
12.  .507 – Tomas Sandstrom, 1987

So, adjusting satistics according to the average offense in the NHL, Mika Zibanejad’s 2019-20 season was the best goal scoring season for any New York Ranger in modern history.  In the same number of games as the Swede, Ratelle would have scored 40 goals, Jagr would have 37 and Hadfield only 36.   Adam Graves would have scored a measly 32 goals in the same 57 games.

It’s worth noting that this decade saw four of the top goal producing years from Zibanejad, Rick Nash and Marian Gaborik.   Though their goal totals were not that many, Nash and Gaborik had productive seasons playing when the NHL was goal-starved.