NHL: Most surprising 40 goal seasons in NHL history: 15. Jeff O’Neill – 2000-01 Carolina Hurricanes
Jeff O’Neill is one of those names that comes up once every few years, and everyone says “oh yeah, that guy”. People know who he was, but he definitely wasn’t a star. It’s likely a lot of people reading this are surprised that O’Neill was a 40-goal scorer. He was, and he was a star that season for the Carolina Hurricanes.
O’Neill are one of the great players that moved with them from Hartford to Carolina. He was a young gun who the Hurricanes thought they might be able to build around in the future. He never really hit the heights they hoped except in the 2000-01 season. He scored 41 goals that season and added 26 assists. He was playing on an aging team with players like Rod Brind’Amour and Ron Francis struggling to hit the peaks they once hit.
This was a peak for O’Neill’s career, but he still had two 30-goal seasons directly after this one. O’Neill was a player who came out of nowhere, was very effective for four seasons, then fell off a cliff production wise.
O’Neill had a fear of flying that impacting his career, and he ended up retiring by the time he was 30 years old. It’s one of the strangest ends to a career, but he left on his terms at least. He could have been a consistent 20-goal scorer, but Hurricanes fans will all remember that 40-goal season.