Claimed:It's HISTORIC

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It’s the final minute of overtime in a key game and the game is tied at 2-2. Both teams have their starters on the field, doing their very best to keep their opponents off the stat sheet. The tension is at an unprecedented high as the referee drops the puck for the faceoff, not one fan is seated. 45 seconds remaining. 30 seconds remaining. 15 seconds remaining, something has to give or the game turns to the dreaded shootout. Then, out of nowhere, a player receives the puck halfway into his opponent’s half with no obstructions between him and the goal. He draws his stick back, the crowd collectively hold their breath.

 

CRACK!

 

The player receives a clubbing blow to the back of his neck from an opponent’s hockey stick and the player is down. Whistles are blown, arms are waved frantically and the referee signals that the offender has been ejected from the game! The crowd is ecstatic! What a play! The stadium spotlight is centred onto the player as he takes to the centre of the ice to rapturous applause before he departs for the ice, knowing that these fans will go home delighted at his terrific 15 penalty minute performance.

 

We all know the great importance of a player who can be relied on to rack up the penalty minutes in any given game, but they never get the recognition they deserve from anyone outside of myself. Therefore, for my doubles week article, I will be focusing on the top five penalty box hunters in the league. I will go through some honourable mentions prior to the top five, but first, I’ll just give a quick rundown of what I was looking at for each player:

 

      Career PIMs  - To be in contention for a spot as a top penalty earner, it’s reasonable to say that they should have had an extended history of racking up the penalties. Guys with four seasons or less to their name and no higher than 30^th in the Career PIM Leaderboard are not going to be remembered as well as those who have perhaps recorded slightly less penalties per season but over a longer period.

         PIMs Per Game – While career penalties are important, there will be instances where a player has a high number of PIMs solely down to the number of games he played. Therefore, it is only fair that we track how many penalty minutes each player racks up per game played.

        PIMs Per Minute – Although recording a player’s average penalty minutes per game is important, it’s also important to take account of the difference between players in terms of their total playing time. For example, starting defensemen will usually get quite a few more minutes than starting forwards.

       Number of Seasons in the Top 25 – The VHL currently records the 25 players with the most PIMs in a season, so if we’re to look for the five best players at accruing minutes, we should look for those who have multiple seasons in the top 25 rather than those who have recorded just the one.

 

Honourable Mentions

 

        James Lefevre – While the younger Lefevre may have recorded more penalty minutes than Noah (James currently has the third most career penalty minutes), the main reason for his high career penalty totals is down to the number of games he has played. When you actually analyse his numbers on a per game basis, his numbers are much less appealing, as he ranks 14^th in PIMs per game and 29^th in penalty minutes per game. He also has only recorded one season in the top 25 PIM seasons.

        Virgil Quincey-McDienenberg – If we were to go solely on a players ability to pick up penalty minutes, than Quincey-McDienenberg would have been right up there, as he currently ranks third in penalty minutes per game and fourth in penalty minutes per minute. However, with a career lasting just four professional seasons, Virgil has not had a substantial impact on the career standings for PIMS, as he is 50^th on the all-time PIM leaderboard. Considering that, out of our top five, our lowest ranked player in the all-time leaderboard is 15^th, it is near impossible to include Quincey-McDienenberg in our top five, but we applaud the terrific efforts he made in such a short career. These reasons are also why Sebastian Ball doesn’t make the top five, as he has only three professional VHL seasons to his name.

        Baron Von Jonsson – If I were to pick a player to be in sixth place for this article, it would have to be Von Jonsson. He currently ranks in fifth place on the all-time PIM leaderboard and eleventh in both penalty minutes per game and penalty minutes per minute. In some regards he is actually better than my selection for the fifth best PIM man in the league, however I decided to exclude him for two reasons. One is that I wanted to have at least a bit of variety in terms of the eras that these top five players played in and, as you will see in the article, the majority of these selections were active around the same VHL period. The second reason though…

 

#5 - Edwin Encarnacion (S35 – Present)

Career PIMs:  1137 (15^th)

PIMs per Game: 3.14 (8^th)

PIMs per Minute: .109 (13^th)

 

…Is that I’m biased as fuck, YEAH! Despite now coming into reckoning recently as a solid defenseman (even picking up two votes for the Labatte this season), Encarnacion has always been best known for his commitment to picking up penalties, with nothing delighting the Dominican more than picking up a penalty on the ice. He even had one incredible game against Helsinki this season where he was ejected only 37 seconds into the game! Encarnacion has pretty much always been there or thereabouts in the PIM leaders for each season, as he lead the league in Seasons 35, 37 and 39 and finished second in Season 38. Season 36 was a disappointment on the PIM front for the former baseball star, however that came from low ice time stemming from a unsuccessful stint with Seattle. One of the big benefits for Encarnacion though is that he still has a very good shot at the legends above him, as he still has three seasons of play in him.

 

#4 – Jochen Walser (S6-S12)

Career PIMs:  1626 (2^nd)

PIMs per Game: 3.23 (T-4^th)

PIMs per Minute: .126 (T-6^th)

 

Unquestionably the best “hockey player” in this top five, Walser had an illustrious seven year career that saw him secure Hall of Fame status just a year after his retirement along with picking up three Defenseman of the Year trophies. But all of those credentials are truly irrelevant if he was unable to perform on the penalty front, and Walser didn’t disappoint, recording more PIMs than anyone else in the Hall of Fame. While lack of resources limit our ability to find out how well Walser did per season, we can say that he lead the league in PIMs in both seasons seven and eight whilst also coming second in his rookie season, behind fellow Hall of Famer Scott Boulet. Walser is not only one of the best offensive defenseman in the league’s history, but also one of its best penalty grabbers.

 

#3 – Peter Payne (S8-S15)

Career PIMs:  1858 (1^st)

PIMs per Game: 3.23 (T-4^th)

PIMs per Minute: .133(3^rd)

 

The history of Peter Payne is important, as being the player to record the most PIM’s in VHL history means that every player comes into the league with the same goal, to be the guy to beat Payne. While he had a solid but unremarkable VHL career outside of his two Two-Way Forward of the Year awards, Payne had a terrific ability to pick up the penalties despite his low ice time of 24 minutes per game. Despite his high career totals though, Payne wasn’t able to lead the season tallies as often as you’d expect, as he only led the league in season nine whilst also coming second in season ten and third in season eleven. In Payne’s defense though, each of these seasons are all recorded in the Top 25 PIM seasons, so it may have been more of a case of an exceptional performance from the players above him.

 

#2 – Noah Lefevre (S10-S15)

Career PIMs:  1443 (4^th)

PIMs per Game: 3.34 (2^nd)

PIMs per Minute: .135 (2^nd)

 

Despite having a much shorter career than both of the retired players below him in the rankings, Noah was able to take full advantage of each and every minute on the ice, ranking second place in both penalty minutes per game and penalty minutes per minute. To our knowledge, Noah only led the league in PIMs in a season once (Season 14), but it should be noted and respected that he is one of only three players to record a 300+ PIM season and one of only two to have two seasons of 300 minutes or more in the penalty box. It appears that the PIM ability runs in the family, as his relative James is currently just above him in career penalty minutes, however that’s really more down to Noah’s shorter career than James actually being better than his predecessor.

 

#1 – Da’Brickashaw O’Neal (S10-S14)

Career PIMs:  1353 (7^th)

PIMs per Game: 3.76 (1^st)

PIMs per Minute: .158 (1^st)

 

As someone who hasn’t been in this league too long, after first reading these career statistics, I thought there had to have been some mistake in the calculations. There’s absolutely no way somebody could inherit PIMs at such a rate surely? How wrong I was, as Da’Brickashaw will go down in history as the greatest PIM earner in the league and, unless someone makes an effort to create a player that solely searches for PIMs, it will be a while before he is surpassed. As it turns out, O’Neal has had a son enter the league not too long ago, but having only been taken in the fifth round of the Season 40 VHL Draft, it appears the same highs of the league’s first O’Neal are not expected.

Edited September 28, 2014 by YEAH!

[Victor 10,940]

Second decade: the glory days of PIMs and nothing else.

[HawksFan19 89]

Content: 3/3

 

Great idea! Pretty sure someone in Helsinki's Locker Room thought about doing this. Very neat to read. Would love to see something like best hitting seasons or something. 1689 words, good.

 

Grammar: 2/2

 

centred - centered

centre - center

honourable - honorable

analyse - analyze

a - an

 

Appearance: 1/1

 

Picture good, would like to see colors.

 

Final: 6/6 x2 Historical = 12/12

[Kesler 1,514]

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