Career Records and Their Chances of Being Broken

[Corco 1,124]

It’s been a long 70 seasons in the Victory Hockey League; around 2,000 individual players have skated on VHL ice in those 70 seasons. Something I’ve always loved was how meticulous the league is at maintaining its storied history, and how well we take care of our record books. In this article I’ll take a look at every mainstream individual player stat record and attempt to determine its ability to be broken, so without further ado, lets begin.

 

 

Games Played

Record: 648

Record Holder(s): Sterling Labatte & Markus Lidstrom

Likelihood of Being Broken: Never (0%)

 

Hall of Famer defenseman Sterling Labatte and Markus Lidstrom will forever hold the Games Played record so long as the league doesn’t make any rule changes that increase career length. Thanks to a technicality in the early days of the league, Labatte and Lidstrom were able to play a record-nine VHL seasons, culminating for a total of 648 games. To my knowledge, the league has no intention of increasing the maximum career length, so Labatte and Lidstrom’s record is likely one of the safest on this list.

 

Goals

Record: 599

Record Holder(s): Scotty Campbell

Likelihood of Being Broken: Never (0%)

 

Expect to see Scotty Campbell’s name a lot on this list; I even considered omitting him from this list because most of his records will never even be close to broken, but I digress. Campbell’s record of 599 Goals (really wish he scored just one more, but oh well) will never even come close to being eclipsed, especially with the amount of league parity that exists now; no other player in league history even has 450 goals, let alone 500. The highest goal scorer in recent memory is @Beketov's Matt Thompson, who scored a total of 422 in the S60s;  it’s very safe to say that Campbell will forever be the VHL’s goal-scoring king.

 

Assists

Record: 639

Record Holder(s): Scotty Campbell

Likelihood of Being Broken: Never (0%)

 

I told you that we would be seeing Campbell’s name a lot on this list; his 639 career assists are 59 more than 2nd place defender Japinder Singh. While I would still consider this record untouchable, I would say that it’s not AS untouchable as the goals record. If the league expands again and parity decreases to the levels it was in the S20s/30s, I could see someone somehow approaching this record, but the chances of that are one in a million. @Quik’s Mats Johnsson is the highest assist compiler in recent memory, reaching a career total of 469 in 8 seasons between Stockholm, Calgary, Seattle, and Helsinki.

 

Points

Record: 1,239

Record Holder(s): Scotty Campbell

Likelihood of Being Broken:  (0%)

 

Shocker. I’ve heard that there were rumors of rigging when Scotty Campbell played (as he was the simmer back then I believe), and while people are always making claims like that when a player does well, I can’t blame people for accusing him. The guy scored over one THOUSAND points; no other player has, or ever will, do that again. If scotty was indeed rigging (which I don’t believe, because to rig that hard for 8 seasons would be a pain in the ass and extremely pathetic), I can only imagine that he would go into the sim, boost all of his ratings to the max, sim, and then return them to their original levels before exporting the updated index. With the current parity in the league it will be tough for a player to ever even break 900 points; Cast was the closest recently, scoring 846.

 

+/-

Record: +643 & -345

Record Holder(s): Scotty Campbell (+) & Sam Pouza (-)

Likelihood of Being Broken: Never (0%) [+] & Extremely Unlikely (10%) [-]

 

Once again, nobody will likely come close to Campbell’s record; @STZ’s Unassisted is the closest behind Scotty, and he is over 100 short (+530) of the record. Interestingly enough, the top 10 isn’t filled with players from the VHL’s early days; only Campbell and fellow HoFer Josh Vestiquan have played in the VHL pre-S10 from that group. On the other end of the spectrum is Sam Pouza; Pouza is an interesting player, he finished his career in the relatively exclusive 2,000 Hit club, and scored over half a point per game. Unfortunately, he won’t be remembered for his positive accolades; Pouza is the unfortunate record holder for the worst career +/- rating in history, at a whopping minus-345. Pouza has none other than the S19-S21 New York Americans to thank for this, as he compiled a mind-blowing -204 rating in those seasons combined.

 

Penalty Minutes

Record: 1858

Record Holder(s): Peter Payne

Likelihood of Being Broken: Likely (70%)

 

Finally we come across our 1st record that will likely be broken! Noted enforcer Peter Payne spent over 1,800 minutes in the sin bin during his career spanning S8-S15. The next closest to Payne record is @Tagger’s Edwin Encarnacion, who retired only 53 penalty minutes shy of Payne’s record. More recently, Luc-Pierre Lespineau-Lebrunette finished his career 292 PIM short of Payne’s record in S66, but he only played 7 seasons; I have no doubt in my mind that if Lespineau-Lebrunette played a full 8 seasons, he would have surpassed Payne’s mark.

 

Hits

Record: 2769

Record Holder(s): Zach Parechkin

Likelihood of Being Broken: Unlikely (25%)

 

@DollarAndADream’s Zach Parechkin set the current Hits record during his final season in S53, and it looks like nobody will be coming close anytime soon! There are currently no active players within 700 hits of Parechkin’s record, but I feel that if a player made a build solely chasing hits, then they might be able to overtake the Hall of Fame winger.

 

Shots Blocked

Record: 1407

Record Holder(s): Markus Lidstrom

Likelihood of Being Broken: Plausible (50%)

 

Lidstrom makes his 2nd appearance on this list, having been a human sandbag in his 9 season career. You could also make the argument that this record should belong to Edwin Encarnacion, as 99% of the VHL has only played 8 seasons, and Encarnacion is the true career leader, with 1,388. I could definitely see this record being eventually broken though, as the VHL seems to be entering another low-scoring era; @McWolf’s Joseph McWolf, @tfong’s Tzuyu, and Sidney Crosby are all recent players who have eclipsed the 1,000 Shot Block plateau.

 

 

1,000+ Words

Edited March 11, 2020 by Corco

[McWolf 3,111]

41 minutes ago, Corco said:

The highest goal scorer in recent memory is @Victor’s Podrick Cast, who scored a total of 379 in the S60s

@Beketov 

 

 

[Corco 1,124]

3 minutes ago, McWolf said:

@Beketov 

 

 

No idea what you're talking about!!

[Beketov 8,639]

11 minutes ago, McWolf said:

@Beketov 

 

 

@Corco out here trying to snub me.

[DollarAndADream 3,356]

Funny thing is, I never actually aimed to break a hits record with Parechkin. I was just making an Ovechkin kind of build, hits+scoring, and then that all came with it.

 

The chemistry he had with Max Molholt was something else.

[Banackock 7,634]

MORE GM STUFF PLEASE 

[solas 1,946]

Axelsson was only 40 hits away from Parechkin 

[DollarAndADream 3,356]

2 hours ago, solas said:

Axelsson was only 40 hits away from Parechkin 

Close, but no cigar.

[Corco 1,124]

Claiming Week 2

[animal74 1,605]

On 3/11/2020 at 1:42 PM, Corco said:

Penalty Minutes

Record: 1858

Record Holder(s): Peter Payne

Likelihood of Being Broken: Likely (70%)

 

Finally we come across our 1st record that will likely be broken! Noted enforcer Peter Payne spent over 1,800 minutes in the sin bin during his career spanning S8-S15. The next closest to Payne record is @Tagger’s Edwin Encarnacion, who retired only 53 penalty minutes shy of Payne’s record. More recently, Luc-Pierre Lespineau-Lebrunette finished his career 292 PIM short of Payne’s record in S66, but he only played 7 seasons; I have no doubt in my mind that if Lespineau-Lebrunette played a full 8 seasons, he would have surpassed Payne’s mark.

 

Hits

Record: 2769

Record Holder(s): Zach Parechkin

Likelihood of Being Broken: Unlikely (25%)

 

@DollarAndADream’s Zach Parechkin set the current Hits record during his final season in S53, and it looks like nobody will be coming close anytime soon! There are currently no active players within 700 hits of Parechkin’s record, but I feel that if a player made a build solely chasing hits, then they might be able to overtake the Hall of Fame winger.

Randy Marsh was the most recent PIM muncher, retiring at 6th All-Time but was still 408 short of Payne.

Druss Deathwalker (me) is built to break the hits record. I'm at over 1300 with 10 games left in my fourth season. If I don't make it, I'll be close!

[animal74 1,605]

On 3/11/2020 at 1:42 PM, Corco said:

Hits

Record: 2769

Record Holder(s): Zach Parechkin

Likelihood of Being Broken: Unlikely (25%)

 

@DollarAndADream’s Zach Parechkin set the current Hits record during his final season in S53, and it looks like nobody will be coming close anytime soon! There are currently no active players within 700 hits of Parechkin’s record, but I feel that if a player made a build solely chasing hits, then they might be able to overtake the Hall of Fame winger.