Accomplishments
As of 2011, Bossy holds or shares the following NHL records:
- Most consecutive 50+ goal seasons: 9
- Most 50+ goal seasons (not necessarily consecutive): 9 (tied with Wayne Gretzky)
- Most 60+ goal seasons (not necessarily consecutive): 5 (tied with Wayne Gretzky)
- Highest goals-per-game average, career (modern era): .762 goals per game
- Most power-play goals, one playoff season: 9 (tied with Cam Neely)
- Most consecutive hat tricks: 3 (tied with Joe Malone, who accomplished this twice)
Bossy has won the following major NHL awards:
- Calder Trophy (rookie of the year), 1978
- Conn Smythe Trophy (playoff MVP), 1982
- Lady Byng Trophy (player best combining a high skill level with gentlemanly play), three times (1983, 1984, 1986)
- First Team All-Star, five times
He also led the league in goals twice, in 1978-79 and 1980-81 (both predate the Rocket Richard Trophy). And of course, he was a part of all four Stanley Cup-winning New York Islanders teams.
Here is a selected list of other official NHL record categories where Bossy was once the record-holder and/or is ranked very highly:
- Goals, career: 19th all-time with 573, achieved in about 200 fewer games than anyone else in the top 50
- Goals, regular season and playoffs combined, one season: seventh all-time with 85 (was a record at the time it was achieved)
- Assists by a right wing, one season: second all-time with 83 (was a record at the time it was achieved)
- Points by a right wing, one season: second all time with 147 (was a record at the time it was achieved)
- Goals by a rookie, one season: second all-time with 53 (was a record at the time it was achieved)
- 100+ point seasons, career: fourth all-time with 7
- Goals per game, playoffs, career: second all-time with .659
- Goals per game, regular season and playoffs combined, career: second all-time with .747
- Points per game, career: third all-time
- Assists per game, career: seventeenth all-time
- Shooting percentage, career: fourth all-time with 21.18%
- Hat tricks, one season: tied for third all-time with 9 (was a record at the time it was achieved)
- Hat tricks, career: third all-time with 39
Bossy has several significant career achievements that are not official NHL records. He reached 100 career goals faster (in terms of career games played) than any other player in modern NHL history, requiring just 129 games to accomplish this. (Joe Malone-62, Newsy Lalonde-69, Cy Denneny-86, Babe Dye-88, Reg Noble-109 & Frank Nighbor-125 had previously scored 100 goals in fewer games.) He was also the fastest to various other milestones such as 200 (255 GP), 300 (381 GP), 400 (506 GP) and 500 (647 GP) goals at the time he achieved them, but Wayne Gretzky and Mario Lemieux have since surpassed these marks. In the 1980–81 NHL season, he scored 50 goals in the first 50 games of the season - only the second player, and the first in almost 40 years, to achieve this. He remains one of only five players who can claim to have accomplished this. He is the only player to score 17 goals in three consecutive playoff years.
Bossy was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1991. His #22 jersey was retired by the Islanders on March 3, 1992. In 1998, he was ranked number 20 on The Hockey News' list of the 100 Greatest Hockey Players.
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