NHL players with the most assists in a single season: Top record holders

Some NHL seasons are remembered not for goals but for the players who made them possible. In those stretches, the ice seemed to widen around certain skaters, their touch turning routine shifts into moments that rewrote how offenses flowed.

There were years when a single playmaker held the tempo of an entire team, threading passes that felt inevitable only after they landed. Those assists reshaped game plans and forced rivals to adjust night after night.

What endures from those runs isn’t just the final tally, but the sense that these players captured something rare: the ability to control chaos with a quiet, constant influence. Their names stand as markers few have been able to match.

Who had the most assists in one NHL season?

When discussing the single-season assist record in NHL history, one name looms larger than any other: Wayne Gretzky. In the 1985–86 season, while wearing the Edmonton Oilers sweater, he delivered 163 assists in the regular season, a total so far beyond the norm that it still stands decades later as the official record.

Wayne Gretzky #99 of the Edmonton Oilers in 2003 (Source: Jeff Vinnick/Getty Images)

What makes this mark even more remarkable isn’t just the raw number — it’s the context. His 163 helpers weren’t scattered across a fluke run of games; they came in a full 80-game NHL schedule against the era’s elite defenders and goaltenders.

At a time when the league was transitioning from strictly physical play to more open offense, his vision on the ice redefined what was possible from a playmaker. That season, He didn’t just assist on goals — he directed traffic.

His presence on the ice was described by contemporaries as orchestral: a center who saw plays develop before they existed, threading passes with surgical precision. His assists are not merely statistics but a lesson in spatial awareness and hockey intellect that remains unrivaled.