On This Day: Wayne Gretzky Sets a New Bar

Since we have 12 more hours to wait until the puck drops between the Oilers and Kings I thought it might be fun to look at an NHL record that happened on this day in 1986.

Back in 1986, the Oilers (and NHL as a whole) were pumping goals home at a clip that will never be seen again. Want offence? Go back and check out some games from the glory days in the 80s. Hockey games would routinely see goals in the double digits and the result was Wayne Gretzky setting a record that will never be touched again.

On April 4th, 1986, the Oilers lost to the Calgary Flames by a score of 9-3 but the real story was Wayne Gretzky. It was during that game that Gretzky registered his 213th point which broke his own record of 212 (he would finish the season with 215). It’s a record that will never be touched again.

When you consider that Connor McDavid is leading the league with 94 points it seems crazy to think that Gretzky more than doubled that on four separate occasions. I know the NHL was a different league back then, but the numbers are staggering when you look at them.

In total, Gretzky was involved in 215 of the Oilers 426 goals from that season, or 50.4% of the offence. To put that into perspective, the 2016-17 Oilers have scored a total of 231 goals at the time of this writing.