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Who was the first NHL player to score more than 500 goals in a career?

Few players dominated his era the way Maurice “Rocket” Richard dominated his. On October 19, 1957, at the Montreal Forum he scaled another plateau when he scored goal number 500, the first to do so in the NHL. The Rocket was playing in his 863rd game. Strangely enough, Richard never won a scoring championship. In fact, he holds the record for being the runnerup, accomplishing that unfortunate mark five times in 1945, 1947, 1951, 1954, and 1955. To date only two NHL players have scored more than 800 regular-season career goals: Wayne Gretzky (894) and Gordie Howe (801).

Who is the only rookie to win the NHL scoring championship?

Scrappy, surly Nels Stewart was already 23 when he joined the NHL as a Montreal Maroon in 1925–26. Previously, “Old Poison,” as he was nicknamed, had played for five years with the Cleveland Indians in the USA Hockey Association. Born in Montreal, Stewart scored 34 goals and eight assists for 42 points in 36 games in his inaugural season. That year he also won the Hart Trophy as most valuable player and helped the Maroons to win the Stanley Cup. Old Poison won a second Hart in 1929–30 and scored 39 goals and 16 assists for 55 points in only 44 games. The next season, on January 3, 1931, he potted two goals in four seconds, an NHL record that still stands, though it was equalled by the Winnipeg Jets’ Deron Quint in 1995. The record for most goals scored by a rookie in the NHL belongs to Teemu Selanne, who got 76 in 1992–93 while playing for the Winnipeg Jets. That same year Selanne racked up 132 points, which is also a record for a rookie.