Notable players and their records.

The Hockey Hall of Fame

The Hockey Hall of Fame was established in Kingston, Ontario, on 10 September 1943, according to its own history. Its first inductees, named in 1945, were the players Dan Bain, Hobey Baker, Dubbie Bowie, Chuck Gardiner, Eddie Gerard, Frank McGee, Howie Morenz, Tommy Phillips, Harvey Pulford, Art Ross, Hod Stuart and Georges Vezina, with Sir Montagu Allan and Lord Stanley as builders. In 1958 the NHL withdrew its support for Kingston and chose Toronto, where the Hall's building at the Canadian National Exhibition grounds opened on 26 August 1961. It moved to the former Bank of Montreal building at Yonge and Front streets in Toronto, opening there on 18 June 1993 by the Hall's own account; a travel site gives 1983 instead. The 2026 class (Patrice Bergeron, Carey Price, Pekka Rinne, Keith Tkachuk, Cindy Curley and builder Brian Burke) was announced on 22 June 2026 and is due to be inducted at the 7 to 9 November 2026 induction weekend. See the Hall of Fame page.

Early stars, to 1945

• Frank Fredrickson, 1920: scored 12 of the Winnipeg Falcons' 29 goals as they won the first Olympic hockey tournament (Canadian Olympic Hall of Fame).
• King Clancy, 1923: played all six positions, including two minutes in goal, in Ottawa's Cup-clinching win over Edmonton (NHL.com).
• Howie Morenz, 1927: scored the overtime winner for Montreal against the Maroons in the first all-NHL playoff game settled in overtime (NHL.com).
• Maurice Richard, 1944-45: the first NHL player to score 50 goals in a season, reaching 50 in the 50th and last game, on 18 March 1945 (Wikipedia).

Gordie Howe and the six-team era

NHL.com's profile gives the main facts. Gordie Howe, "Mr. Hockey", was born on 31 March 1928 in Floral, Saskatchewan. He played 25 seasons with Detroit and one with Hartford, 1,767 NHL games in all, and scored 801 NHL goals. He won the Hart Trophy six times and the Art Ross Trophy six times, won four Stanley Cups, and entered the Hall of Fame in 1972. He came out of retirement to play in the World Hockey Association with his sons from 1973, played his last NHL season in 1979-80 with Hartford, and died on 10 June 2016 at 88.

Henri Richard's name is on the Stanley Cup 11 times as a player, more than anyone else, according to Wikipedia.

The expansion era

• Bobby Orr, 1970: won the Hart, Art Ross and Norris trophies and the Conn Smythe, and scored the Cup-winning goal against St. Louis. NBC Sports Boston calls it arguably the greatest season by an NHL defenceman.
• Bobby Hull, 1972: moved from the Chicago Black Hawks to the Winnipeg Jets as the WHA's headline signing (Wikipedia).
• Mike Bossy, 1980-81: became the second player to score 50 goals in 50 games, 36 years after Richard (Wikipedia), and in 1984 the first to score 50 goals in seven straight seasons (NHL.com).
• Sergei Priakin, 1989: debuted with Calgary as the first Soviet player allowed by the Soviet authorities to play in the NHL (NHL.com). CBS Sports describes Alexander Mogilny, inducted into the Hall in 2025, as the first Soviet player to defect to play in the NHL.

Wayne Gretzky

The figures below come from Wikipedia's list of Gretzky's career achievements, except where noted.

Gretzky played for the Indianapolis Racers in the WHA in 1978-79 before moving to Edmonton. He passed Gordie Howe's goal record with his 802nd goal on 23 March 1994, according to AP. He held or shared 61 NHL records when he retired; how many he still holds is given by Wikipedia as both 55 (as of 2024-25) and 57 (as of September 2024). The NHL retired number 99 league-wide on 6 February 2000, and he entered the Hall of Fame in 1999 with the usual three-year wait waived. In May 2008 he was the only Canadian named to the IIHF's Centennial All-Star Team, and was chosen unanimously, according to The Hockey News.

Wikipedia's list of 50-goals-in-50-games scorers also includes Mario Lemieux (1988-89) and Brett Hull (1990-91 and 1991-92).

Alex Ovechkin

AP reported that Washington's Alex Ovechkin scored his 895th NHL goal on 6 April 2025, a second-period power-play goal against the New York Islanders' Ilya Sorokin in Elmont, New York, passing Gretzky's career record. He had tied and passed Howe's 801 with two goals on 23 December 2022. By April 2025 he also held the NHL records for power-play goals, shots on goal and the number of goaltenders scored against. His career total has moved since then, and with the 2026-27 season in progress as of October 2026 it is not given here.

International stars

The IIHF's Centennial All-Star Team, named in May 2008, was Gretzky, Vladislav Tretiak, Valeri Kharlamov, Sergei Makarov and Vyacheslav Fetisov of the Soviet Union, and Borje Salming of Sweden, according to The Hockey News. Sidney Crosby scored the overtime winner in the 2010 Olympic final against the United States in Vancouver (NHL.com).

Women's stars

• Angela James and Cammi Granato, 2010: enshrined on 8 November 2010 as the first women in the Hockey Hall of Fame, according to Reuters. The IIHF's women's hockey history page also lists Geraldine Heaney among the 2010 inductees, while the Reuters report names only James and Granato. Granato led the United States to the 2005 world title and was invited to try out with the New York Islanders but declined to focus on the Olympics.
• Hayley Wickenheiser, 2019: four Olympic golds, one Olympic silver and seven world championship golds; inducted on 18 November 2019 as the Hall's seventh woman (Fox News).
• Marie-Philip Poulin: in 2022 the first hockey player, men's or women's, to score in four Olympic gold medal games (NBC Chicago); in February 2026 she became the all-time leading goal scorer in Olympic women's hockey (Canadian Olympic Committee).

Their careers are set in context on the women's hockey history page.

Recent

Carolina captain Jordan Staal won the 2026 Conn Smythe Trophy at 37, the oldest winner of the award, scoring six of his eight playoff goals in the Final, according to Field Level Media. Willie O'Ree, the NHL's first Black player, entered the Hall of Fame as a builder in 2018; his story is on the integration page.