Neal joins impressive company with 20th goal of season

James Neal is a scoring machine, and playing for an expansion team is not slowing him down.

With a goal in Friday's overtime loss to the Florida Panthers, the Vegas Golden Knights winger became the sixth active player to score at least 20 goals in each of his first 10 NHL seasons.

The other five are Alexander Ovechkin, Jonathan Toews, Patrick Kane, Tomas Vanek, and Jaromir Jagr.

Neal was drafted 33rd overall by the Dallas Stars in 2005 and scored 24 goals as a rookie in 2008-09. His lowest single-season total is 21, recorded in 2012-13 with the Pittsburgh Penguins, but he appeared in only 40 games that season.

He hit his high the season prior, scoring 40 goals for the Penguins.

With 20 goals through 45 games, Neal is on pace for 36 over a full 82-game season. He becomes an unrestricted free agent on July 1.

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