This is the point in our talker series where Rocket's influence starts to creep into the picture. As you know, both Rocket and Marthaler -- and really, nobody else -- have complained from time to time about the lack of hockey love shown here on RandBall.

It's not that we don't enjoy the sport; far from it, in fact, as we grew up going to more live college hockey games than anything else. By a mile. But writers tend to gravitate towards the things they know better from a following and fact-based standpoint. And we just don't follow the NHL as intensely as the NFL, MLB or NBA. So it goes. Our ignorance of the NHL record book became apparent when we thought, for some reason, that Mark Messier was the all-time leading goal scorer in the league's history. Don't ask us why. We remembered that Wayne Gretzky has more career assists than anyone else even has career points. From there, we decided he must not have been that much of a goal man. And we were obviously way wrong.

But back to the matter at hand. There have been 41 players who have topped the magical 500 goal mark in their NHL careers. Who are the weakest members in this group? Since it's a longer list than the past two, we will accept answers for both top 20 and overall. The goal is to reach a consensus, then go to that person's house and tell them. (OK, actually it's just for a little bit of mid-August fun). Here is your list of the 41 (*denotes Hall of Famer).

1. Wayne Gretzky* 894
2. Gordie Howe* 801
3. Brett Hull* 741
4. Marcel Dionne* 731
5. Phil Esposito* 717
6. Mike Gartner* 708
7. Mark Messier* 694
8. Steve Yzerman* 692
9. Mario Lemieux* 690
10. Luc Robitaille* 668
11. Brendan Shanahan 656
12. Jaromir Jagr 646
13. Dave Andreychuk 640
14. Joe Sakic 625
15. Bobby Hull* 610
16. Dino Ciccarelli* 608
17. Teemu Selanne 606
18. Jari Kurri* 601
19. Mike Bossy* 573
20-tie. Joe Nieuwendyk 564
20-tie. Mats Sundin 564
22. Mark Recchi 563
23. Guy Lafleur* 560
24. Mike Modano 557
25. John Bucyk* 556
26. Ron Francis* 549
27. Michel Goulet* 548
28. Maurice Richard* 544
29. Stan Mikita* 541
30. Keith Tkachuk 538
31. Frank Mahovlich* 533
32. Bryan Trottier* 524
33. Pat Verbeek 522
34. Dale Hawerchuk* 518
35. Pierre Turgeon 515
36. Jeremy Roenick 513
37. Gilbert Perreault* 512
38. Jean Beliveau* 507
39. Peter Bondra 503
40. Joe Mullen* 502
41. Lanny McDonald* 500

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Talker series: The worst of the best -- NFL 10,000 yard rushers

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