NHL scoring leaders 2026-27: the Art Ross and Rocket Richard races, updated daily

The NHL scoring leaders are the two races that run under every hockey season: the Art Ross for points and the Rocket Richard for goals. This page tracks both from the NHL’s official statistics, rebuilt every morning, with the assists leaders, the top-scoring defencemen, each Canadian team’s leading scorer and the goalie leaders alongside. Below the tables we explain why the points leader does not always win the Hart, which records are actually in reach, and how the race feeds the awards and props markets. 19+ (18+ in AB, MB and QC).

Last updated 7 November 2026, 8:11 AM ET. 2026-27 regular season, through the games of the previous night: the busiest team has played 12 games and 584 skaters have recorded a point. Team codes are the NHL’s three-letter abbreviations.

What to watch (editor’s note, 7 Nov): Connor McDavid leads the Art Ross race on 44 points from 17 games, 13 clear of Leon Draisaitl. Edmonton has three of the top ten. Evan Bouchard leads the defencemen on 30. Kirill Kaprizov leads the goal race on 15. Logan Cooley is running hottest of the top forty at 37.9 per cent shooting, which is the number most likely to come back down. Scoring leads this early rest on small samples and a hot power play. Treat the order as a draft until November.

Art Ross race: NHL points leaders

Rocket Richard race: NHL goal leaders

Assists leaders

Top-scoring defencemen

Canadian teams: leading scorers

Goalie leaders

Wins

Save percentage (minimum 5 games)

Art Ross versus Hart: why the points leader does not always win MVP

The Art Ross Trophy has no voters. It goes to the points leader, with goals as the tiebreaker, and it has done so since Elmer Lach won the first one in 1947-48. The Hart Trophy is voted by the hockey writers, and the writers weigh team success heavily. That is why the two split in 2026: Connor McDavid won the Art Ross with 138 points on an Edmonton team that finished 14th overall and lost the Hart to Nikita Kucherov, whose 130 points came at 1.71 a game for a Tampa Bay side that finished fifth. The same player has taken both in 14 of the 26 seasons since 2000, but they have now split three years running.

For a bettor that matters in one direction. If you are on a player in the Hart market, the points table above is necessary but not sufficient: check where his team sits in our power rankings as well. If you are on the points race itself, through season-long points props or an Art Ross future where a book offers one, the table is the whole story. Our Hart Trophy odds page carries the current board and the ten-year history of favourites.

Rocket Richard: goals, not votes

The Maurice Richard Trophy has gone to the regular-season goals leader since 1998-99, when Teemu Selanne won the first with 47. Alex Ovechkin has won it nine times, more than anyone, and Nathan MacKinnon took the 2026 edition with 53 goals, three clear of Cole Caufield and five clear of McDavid. Auston Matthews’ 69 goals in 2023-24 remain the most in a season since Mario Lemieux’s 69 in 1995-96. Goal races are noisier than points races because shooting percentage swings, which is why the shots and shooting-percentage columns are in the table: a leader converting at 20 percent on modest volume is more likely to fade than one at 15 percent on 300 shots.

Records in reach

None of the single-season marks is realistic in the modern game, but the since-2000 lines are live targets for the top of the table, and the defenceman lines are the context for the Norris Trophy race: Evan Bouchard led all defencemen with 95 points last season and was still left off the Norris ballot’s final three. Defencemen who score are not automatically defencemen who win. First-year players get their own race on our NHL rookie scoring leaders page, where Selanne’s 132 is the benchmark.

Using the scoring race for betting

Three markets hang off these tables. Season-long player props on points and goals, which most Ontario and Alberta books post before opening night and reprice through the year. Award futures, where the Hart board is the liquid one and the Art Ross and Rocket Richard boards are thinner. And nightly player props on shots, points and goals, where the leaders are priced for their reputation and the value tends to sit with the second-liner who has just moved up to a scorer’s wing. Our prop bets guide and futures guide cover the mechanics. Two cautions: early-season pace is noise until a player has 15 or 20 games, and every table here assumes health, so check the NHL injury report before you bet on a leader’s next game.

If a line here changes your view of a season-long market, these are the NHL sportsbooks we rate for Canadians, listed by province, with the full comparison on our NHL betting sites page:

Where the numbers come from and when they update

Every table is generated from the NHL’s official statistics feed, the same data behind NHL.com’s leaderboards, and covers regular-season games only. We rebuild the page each morning Eastern time, so the tables reflect the previous night’s games; the stamp at the top says exactly when. Ties in points are broken by goals, as the Art Ross itself does. The NHL awards odds hub covers every trophy these races feed, and the NHL betting hub has the markets and the rules.

NHL scoring leaders FAQ

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