More than 7,500 players have played in the NHL during the league’s 100 years.
Of that group, exactly 5,320 have scored at least one goal.
Only seven have reached the 700-goal mark.
Talk about an exclusive club.
Wayne Gretzky leads the Magnificent Seven with 894. Following "The Great One" are legends of the sport: Gordie Howe, Jaromir Jagr, Brett Hull, Marcel Dionne, Phil Esposito and Mike Gartner.
Others came close, including Mark Messier (694), Steve Yzerman (692) and Mario Lemieux (690).
But here’s the question: Will there be other 700-goal scorers?
The one active player who appears to be a lock if he remains healthy is Alex Ovechkin, who at 31 has 551 goals. The Washington forward has seven 50-goal seasons, including three in a row. He has 26 goals so far this season.
He might be the last to reach the mark for some time. Colorado veteran Jarome Iginla, 39, is the closest active player to 700 with 618, but he’s at the tail end of his career.
The game has changed and the road to 700 is long and arduous.
"It’s more defensive now — it’s tougher to score," said Gretzky, who had a high of 92 goals during the 1981-82 season and surpassed the 50-goal mark nine times. "And the goalies today are more athletic. When Patrick Roy and Grant Fuhr and Martin Brodeur came along, it changed the game. Those guys had as big an impact on the game as any athletes that ever played. … It used to be, and I say this in a nice way, the chubby guy was the goaltender because he couldn’t skate, and those three guys sort of changed everything. Now the goalies are the best athletes on each team, (so) it’s harder to score."
Gartner, who finished with 708 goals despite reaching 50 in a seasononly once, in 1984-85 with the Capitals, said several factors are influencing NHL scoring.
"There’s more depth from top to bottom than maybe there ever has been," he said. "The goaltenders are great athletes now and they’re well-protected. They take up a lot of the net. It makes scoring that much more difficult.
"It’s going to be a little more difficult now just because goal scoring has been down probably over the last 10 or 15 years. (The players who) are plugging away (now) are going to have a tough time getting there because of that. You look 50 years ago, it was tough to score goals then too. The game goes through different stages."
Gartner has a point about scoring overall.
During the 2005-06 season, teams averaged a combined 6.05 goals per game and there were five players who reached 50, led by Jonathan Cheechoo’s 56. Last season, there was an average of 5.34 goals per game and Ovechkin was the only player to notch 50.
From goals to assists to wins to games played, Blackhawks players have achieved a multitude of career milestones during the 2016-17 season.
(Chris Sosa)
"An amazing year in the NHL now is reaching that 50 mark," said Hawks winger Patrick Kane, one of the premier snipers in today’s game. "If you score 30 or 40 now, you’re considered a great goal scorer. It’s a different day and age, but the game has grown so much with so much skill. Players are better all around."
Those better players include goalies and defensemen who make scoring that much more difficult.
"The coaching has changed, the parity has changed, the goaltending is probably the most improved position we have in our game," Messier said. "It’s just not easy to score anymore. The biggest hurdle is whether guys want to play long enough to be able to get those goals."
Another hurdle is the art of blocking shots. Players are not afraid to risk life and limb to get in the way of pucks.
"With the way they block shots and collapse in front of the net, the NHL has to change the game where they can open up the middle of the slot to create more excitement for the fans," Hull said. "Blocking shots to me, that’s not a skill and it’s certainly something I don’t want to watch as a fan. I want to see a guy score a goal or a goalie make a great save on a great play."
Still, Hull and others believe that once Ovechkin reaches the milestone, others will follow.
"If you’re a guy like Alex Ovechkin, there’s nothing stopping you," Hull said. "And you just don’t know how the game is going to change. Then you have these great players coming up like (Auston) Matthews and (Connor) McDavid and you don’t know what can happen. But, yeah, there will be more."
Added Gartner: "You’re going to have to play a long time, that’s the thing. As long as they can do that, there is still that possibility."
Hawks and national TV analyst Eddie Olczyk believes the St. Louis’ Vladimir Tarasenko has the capability of reaching elite scoring levels. He’s just 25 and had 132 goals through Wednesday.
"He’s one guy that I look at and go, ‘Man, you know what, he should just shoot first and answer questions second because he has the ability to find the back of the net.’" Olczyk said. "He can skate and he has a tremendous release.
"You get offensive guys and … they see a play developing and they’re not going to sit on the defensive side. That’s how they’re born. They realize what’s going to happen before it does, and they’ll create and generate more opportunities than most guys in the league."
Another former Hawks player and national analyst, Jeremy Roenick, said the 700-goal club might not see another member once Ovechkin joins.
"I think Ovechkin will be there … (but) I’ll be totally honest and blunt, so my answer will be, ‘no,’ and it will be a firm ‘no’ on (another player reaching) 700," said Roenick, who amassed 513 goals in his career. "If you look at the game today, you look at the goaltenders, you look at the style of play, you look at the talent that these guys have, I mean, that’s 14 years of 50 goals. Nowadays, it’s tough to even find one or two guys scoring 50. Ovechkin is the guy who has pretty much done it consistently. After that, it’s a crapshoot."
Some factors favor more scoring, including three-on-three play during overtime.
"It will add five, six, sometimes 10 goals to the elite goal scorers … without question," Roenick said. "Ovechkin just barely got to 50 last year and he plays pretty much half of every three-on-three overtime. So maybe once they get more accustomed to the three-on-three, they might score more goals."
Time will tell whether that — and perhaps some other future changes to the rules such as smaller pads for goalies or larger nets — will be enough to add to the 700 club, one of the NHL’s most exclusive collections of elite players.
"There are only seven guys and it’s a pretty cool group to be a part of," Gartner said.
ckuc@chicagotribune.com
Twitter @ChrisKuc
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