Jayden Halbgewachs & the 50 Goal Club
Chad Pimlott
Jayden Halbgewachs is having a pretty special year. His Moose Jaw Warriors hockey club is at the top of the WHL and looking to make a serious run at both the Ed Chynoweth Cup and the Memorial Cup. He got signed by the San Jose Sharks and kick-started what could very well be a long career in the NHL. And he scored fifty goals, as a Warrior, for the second straight season; pocketing both his 49th and 50th in a 5-3 win against the Regina Pats on Friday the 19th. But this time he did it faster than any Warrior has ever done it before. He did it with 25 games left with which to keep adding on to that total. The guy can put the puck in the net and will no doubt be remembered as one of the greatest talents ever to grace a Warriors jersey.
But it's not all that uncommon for Warriors to crack fifty in a season. In the 80's and early 90's it was quite a regular thing, actually. This year marked the 13th time it was done. Halbgewachs was the 10th player to do it; and only the third to do it twice (Theo Fleury and Kent Hayes, being the other two).
So far, Halby has scored 119 goals as a Warrior. That's only two shy of surpassing Chad Hinz as the second highest Warrior goal scorer of all-time. But it's unlikely he will surpass Theoren Fleury's leading 201 this season. Do the math, in order to do so, Jayden would need to score another 82 more goals. It's just not a realistic milestone. Theoren Fleury was on a whole new plateau of special.
However, it's not such a stretch to think that Halby could surpass Blair Atcheynum's 70 and hold the all-time single season scoring record.
In chronological order, here are the players in the 50 Goal Club alongside Halbgewachs:
84-85 Mark MacKay 66
84-85 Kent Hayes 56
85-86 Kent Hayes 50
86-87 Theoren Fleury 61
86-87 Trevor Jobe 54
87-88 Theoren Fleury 68
88-89 Blair Atcheynum 70
91-92 Chris Schmidt 60
93-94 Ryan Smyth 50
94-95 Curtis Brown 51
15-16 Dryden Hunt 58
16-17 Jayden Halbgewachs 50
17-18 Jayden Halbgewachs 50...and counting.