Paul Coffey was four points into a night against the Detroit Red Wings in March 1986, which for most defensemen would have been a career evening. Wayne Gretzky skated over to him on the Edmonton Oilers bench with a question.
“Wayne turned to me and asked, ‘Do you know the record for points in a game by a defenseman?'” Coffey told Sportsnet. “I didn’t know, but Wayne knew all the stats, all the records.”
Coffey admitted he had no idea. Gretzky supplied both the number and the plan.
“‘It’s eight,’ Wayne said. ‘Let’s go,'” Coffey recalled.
“And I went out and got four more,” Coffey said. “Didn’t beat the record, but I tied it.”
Paul Coffey’s 1985-86 season:
| Category | Total |
|---|---|
| Goals | 48 |
| Assists | 90 |
| Points | 138 |
What is the record for most points in a game by a defenseman?
He finished the night with two goals and six assists. The mark he had drawn level with belonged to Tom Bladon of the Philadelphia Flyers, set in 1977, and nobody in the nearly fifty years since has gone past either of them.
That season was the one where Coffey rewrote most of what a defenseman could do. The 48 goals broke Bobby Orr‘s single-season record for the position, which had stood at 46, and the 138 points finished one short of Orr’s mark. He also produced a point in 28 consecutive games, which remains an NHL record for defensemen.
READ MORE: Edmonton Oilers franchise records: Gretzky’s marks and the ones now falling
None of it happened by accident. Coffey had a standing arrangement with defense partner Charlie Huddy, who would signal that it was safe to join the rush by singing a line from the Men Without Hats song that was everywhere at the time.
“He’d sing, ‘You can dance if you want to,'” Coffey said.
Coffey retired in 2001 with 1,531 points in 1,409 games, second among defensemen only to Ray Bourque, and won three Norris Trophies and four Stanley Cups along the way.
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