For generations, NHL defensemen weren’t typically known for their offensive prowess. Their priority was to protect the net. But a group of defensemen came along and broke the mold. Ray Bourque led the evolution.<\/p>\n
The former Boston Bruins<\/a> and Colorado Avalanche<\/a> All-Star helped usher in the modern defenseman — a more offensive defenseman who possesses a special blend of physicality and skill. A defenseman who can be a stopper on the defensive end and a generator of points on offense.<\/p>\n In 22 NHL seasons (1979-2001), Bourque won the James Norris Memorial Trophy as the league’s best defenseman five times and finished runner-up for the award six times. He also twice finished second in the race for the Hart Memorial Trophy (awarded annually to the league’s most valuable player), a rarity for a defenseman.<\/p>\n Bourque was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 2004 as the NHL’s all-time leader in career goals (410), assists (1,169) and points (1,579) by a defenseman. Those records still stand more than two decades later.<\/p>\n Here is a look at the defensemen with the most goals in NHL history:<\/p>\n Editor’s Picks<\/p>\n 2 Related<\/p>\n Ray Bourque, 410<\/p>\n Paul Coffey, 396<\/p>\n Al MacInnis, 340<\/p>\n Phil Housley, 338<\/p>\n Denis Potvin, 310<\/p>\n Larry Murphy, 288<\/p>\n Bobby Orr, 270<\/p>\n Nicklas Lidstrom, 264<\/p>\n Brent Burns<\/a>, 262<\/p>\n Brian Leetch, 247<\/p>\n Check out the ESPN NHL hub page<\/a> for the latest news<\/a>, analysis<\/a>, scores<\/a>, stats<\/a>, schedules<\/a> and more.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For generations, NHL defensemen weren’t typically known for their offensive prowess. Their priority was to protect the net.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":284146,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[556],"tags":[64,63,575,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-284145","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-nhl","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284145","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=284145"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284145\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/284146"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=284145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=284145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=284145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}