Remembering Brett Hull's incredible 86-goal season

Most hockey fans know there are three types of elite goal-scorer.

There's the silky-smooth operator capable of stickhandling around entire teams; that's how Wayne Gretzky and Mario Lemieux dominated the goal-scoring ledger. There's also the "lightning on skates" approach that served Mike Gartner, Teemu Selanne and Pavel Bure well.

And then there are the slapshot artists - players whose sole objective is to blast the puck over, around or through whatever might be in the way. And Brett Hull was the best of that bunch.

Tuesday marks the 24th anniversary of one of the most impressive - and unheralded - achievements in NHL history, as Hull scored his 86th goal of the season in the St. Louis Blues' season-ending 2-1 win over the Minnesota North Stars. 

The 80-Goal Club

That finished off the third-most prolific goal-scoring season in history, trailing only Gretzky's record 92-goal performance in 1981-82 and his 87-goal showing in 1983-84. Gretzky, Hull and Lemieux are the only players to score more than 80 goals in a season - and will remain the sole members of that club until the NHL removes goalie equipment altogether, or makes the nets nine feet wide.

The virtuoso performance landed Hull his first and only Hart Trophy as the league's most valuable player - Gretzky finished a distant second despite winning the scoring title by more than 30 points - and marked the second straight time that Hull led the league in goals (he would do so again the following season).

Season Highlights

Here are some of Hull's most memorable achievements during the 1990-91 campaign: 

• After opening with seven goals in eight games, Hull blew past the goal-per-game pace with hat tricks in both ends of a home-and-home series with the Toronto Maple Leafs. Hull had 13 goals in eight games against the Leafs that season, the most of any opponent.

• Hull had at least 11 goals in every month, and only averaged less than a goal per game in two of them - November (11 goals in 13 games) and December (12 goals in 14 games). And his longest goalless drought that season? Two games.

• Hull's best stretch came during a 13-game period from late January to late February in which he tallied a whopping 22 times. He also added 13 of his 45 assists on the season over that span. (Not surprisingly, the Blues went 10-3 during Hull's incredible run.)

• Hull scored at least one goal against each of the league's 20 other teams, with the Philadelphia Flyers (one goal in three games) the only opponent not to allow multiple tallies.

• Hull won the goal-scoring title by a whopping 35 tallies over runners-up Steve Yzerman, Cam Neely and Theoren Fleury - the largest gap in NHL history.

Hull went on to finish his NHL career with 741 goals, ranking him third all-time behind Gretzky and Gordie Howe. And in a Hall of Fame career loaded with accolades, his 1990-91 performance stands as the most impressive of them all.