Which member has the longest playoff streak?

[Victor 10,949]

@AJWapproached me about an interesting topic idea recently, inspired by his own impressive record of never missing the playoffs with his VHL players. I think the question was if anyone had a 100% playoff record but I took it one step further to find the longest playoff streak by member (i.e. across multiple players). Unfortunately for AJ, in the time it took me to come around to writing this article, his own streak has come to an end after 12 seasons – all 6 seasons of AJ Williams with LA and Seattle and the first 6 seasons of Randy Bobandy with Seattle and Calgary. Sorry AJ, although really it's Calgary's fault for contriving to finish behind Chicago in S93.

 

So 12 seasons is the score to beat, can anyone do it? (Spoiler alert: absolutely) The first, obvious, and probably only really useful resource for this is the list of players who never missed the playoffs tucked away at the back of my larger playoff spreadsheet. The list doesn't contain usernames which makes it a trickier task for many members but I will use the part of my brain solely devoted to VHL trivia to guide you through it.

 

Toswammi / @Strummer – 18 seasons (Dust'n Funk, S4-S9, Zak Rawlyk, S10-S17, Olivier Scarlett, S18-S21)

The first name that came to my mind when AJ messaged me was Zak Rawlyk. There's no logical reason to it – he wasn't the first player to never miss the playoffs, although he was the third to do it in a full 8-season career after Scotty Campbell and Josh Vestiquan. But Rawlyk has always stuck out in my mind, perhaps because he was there throughout my entire first-gen career (S10-S17), and in this case he is a useful starting point.

 

Rawlyk was Builder Dust'n Funk's 2^nd player, his GM player after he took over and relocated the Stockholm Rams to Riga. Funk was a hugely successful GM and was himself part of the record-setting Seattle Bears dynasty of S4-S6, meaning he brought a 3-season playoff streak to Riga which he extended to 6 in Latvia before his retirement. Rawlyk took that baton and ran, scoring the a Game 7 cup winner in his rookie season, winning another cup with New York and eventually, not missing the playoffs. Then Funk recreated, brought Olivier Scarlett back to Riga and the streak continued for another 4 seasons before the Reign finally got dumped out in S22. Add that all up and we've got 18 consecutive playoff appearances from S4 to S21 (VHLM/pre-draft seasons are excluded if I didn't make that obvious already, but in Funk's case that wasn't actually relevant). The gauntlet has been thrown down.

 

Green / @OrbitingDeath  – 20 seasons (Remy LeBeau, S31-S38, Thomas O'Malley, S40-S47, Pietro Maximoff, S49-S56)

Who can challenge a bonafide member of VHL royalty? Another name synonymous with success from his first player is no bad place to start. Remy LeBeau actually made his name early on by putting on incredible save numbers on a dreadful Toronto team, but once they got going he retired on a 4-season playoff streak (including 3 straight finals). Then enter Thomas O'Malley, the not so modern Scotty Campbell who didn't miss the playoffs and won championships in half of his 8-season career. And then Pietro Maximoff keeps the streak going with another 8 seasons in the playoffs and another Hall of Famer, something which Funk certainly can not match.
 

The picture becomes a bit blurred after that with Project Player Two. OD then made Peter Quill whose first two seasons overlapped with Maximoff but he missed the playoffs immediately after that in S57. If you ignore Quill, which I personally don't think we should, and follow the original recreation line to Adam Warlock, fortunately the debate is killed by Warlock missing the playoffs as a rookie in S59. 20 seasons is still no mean feat, and that is the score to beat.

 

@Jericho – 16 seasons (Daniel Braxton, S24-S31, Wesley Kellinger, S33-S40)

The next name that came into my head was Jericho, long inactive but a massive part of the VHL middle ages. His first two players were Hall of Famers, a reasonably rare feat (Kellinger being inducted significantly later than Braxton), but even rarer is the fact neither missed the playoffs. Therefore, while his 3^rd player, Jax Barnstormer, ruined things from the very start (and Jericho would never really reach his previous heights again) and 16 seasons is where this streak caps out, it is still worth a shout-out for being a streak from his first season. That might be a small record of its own.

 

What about me? - 20 seasons (Alexander Chershenko, S30-S34, Matt Bentley, S35-S42, Greg Clegane, S45-S51)

I take some pride in the fact that I don't think I or anyone can write an article about this without at least considering whether I was in contention. I thought I wasn't, with my first-gen's rookie season and my second player's last season meaning that my first streak with Vase Trikamaki and Lars Berger was 12 seasons (S12-S23). However, I put in a stronger effort from Alexander Chershenko's peak through Matt Bentley not missing the playoffs to Greg Clegane only doing so in his last season, meaning I tied Green in S51. Honestly, I didn't actually expect that when I started writing this as I knew I just missed out on a couple 8-season careers without missing the playoffs, but clearly three of those timed themselves quite well.
 

I am now on a new 14-season streak carrying over from Vladimir Pavlov and Rara Rasputin as Del Rocco goes into his rookie season (if you ignore the 10-season post-Rasputin hiatus) but what I'm now more interested in is if anyone else has been able to exceed the apparent joint-top 20-season mark.

 

I looked at two more candidates and will lay both out below but the second clearly blew the competition out of the water.

 

@frescoelmo – 16 seasons (Tarik Saeijs, S23-S25, Emerson Byer, S27-S31, Felix Zamora, S33-S40)

Just including you so you know I'm always thinking about you x

 

@Higgins – 36 seasons (Mitch Higgins, S26-S30, Tuomas Tukio, S31-S38, James Faraday, S40-S46, Black Velvet, S48-S55, Jack Shephard, S56-S63)

My erstwhile fellow commissioner Higgins was Jericho and Braxton's number one enemy when they were first-gens, but landed a greater legacy after that. During his peak, Higgins himself ended his career with 5 straight playoff appearances, before embarking on a 4-player streak to run away with a 36-season streak overall. Given Higgins has effectively been inactive since Shephard's retirement, he effective made the playoffs for 36 of his 38 VHL seasons and left with what is surely an untouchable record. I deem further research to be redundant and would simply like to congratulate Higgins on this achievement. I welcome any further efforts to expand on the below list as there may well be further entries between first and second place, and almost certainly below that, but I think that's a good day's work as is.

 

1. Higgins – 36 seasons

T2. Victor and OrbitingDeath – 20 seasons

4. Toswammi – 18 seasons

T5. Jericho and frescoelmo – 16 seasons

[Ahma 1,431]

Higglypuff!!!

 

playoffs 36 seasons in a row is nuts

Edited May 20 by Ahma

[OrbitingDeath 3,198]

Lets team up and beat Higgins Vic. Together we are at 40

[scoop 3,432]

2 hours ago, Victor said:

@Jericho – 16 seasons (Daniel Braxton, S24-S31, Wesley Kellinger, S33-S40)

The next name that came into my head was Jericho, long inactive but a massive part of the VHL middle ages. His first two players were Hall of Famers, a reasonably rare feat (Kellinger being inducted significantly later than Braxton), but even rarer is the fact neither missed the playoffs. Therefore, while his 3^rd player, Jax Barnstormer, ruined things from the very start (and Jericho would never really reach his previous heights again) and 16 seasons is where this streak caps out, it is still worth a shout-out for being a streak from his first season. That might be a small record of its own.

If only Barnstormer never existed. His next player was 8/8 as well.

 

 

Also, if I'm not mistaken, and I very well may be, is boubabi technically on a 19-season streak? To my knowledge, Ay Ay Ron was his last player, and his career overlapped with Franchise Cornerstone. They were both 8/8. Add the three final seasons of Lord Karnage's career and that's 19 in a row.

[frescoelmo 1,276]

 

@Victor

[Victor 10,949]

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