Bryan Trottier in 1978-79. You Islanders guessers got it better than I did. Bobby Clarke won 3 Harts earlier that decade so I thought he led in scoring at least once, but nope. Esposito, Orr, and then Lafleur all had a stranglehold on the scoring lead for most of the 70s.

The most interesting thing? Since that season 40 years ago (!!!) only ONE Original Six team player has led the league in scoring: Pat Kane just a few seasons ago. So Trottier ended the Original Six Art Ross dominance and started a streak of over 35 years of non-O6 teams. The year after Trottier was Marcel Dionne (had the tiebreaker over rookie Gretzky) and then Gretzky, Mario Lemieux and Jagr owned it for 20+ years. But there have been a ton of different winners since then.

Note: The closest O6 teams came to the Art Ross during that streak was probably 2005-06, and arguably gives it an asterisk. Joe Thornton led the league that year and was traded from Boston to San Jose during the season, so maybe you count it as O6 (I don’t but whatever) and Jagr was a close second that season with the Rangers.