Back in the early S40s, Kristian Eriksson and Esa Anrikkanen were battling each other for the top spot on the SHL's all time scoring leaderboard. For years, it had seemed a foregone conclusion that Esa would be unchallenged in his quest to surpass the incumbent Joe Mckeil to became the leagues all time scorer, but a late career resurgence by Eriksson had vaulted him forwards into a neck-and-neck race for the number one spot. It was Esa who reached 927 points first in S41, overtaking Mckeil, but the competition between Eriksson and Anrikkanen quickly morphed into a race to see who could hit 1000 points first. Over S41 and S42, the two were evenly matched, with their career totals never differing by more than a few points and the top spot frequently changing hands. However, in S43 Eriksson had a poor year while Anrikkanen was his usual consistent self. At the end of that season, Anrikkanen stood at 994 points while Eriksson was a distant second with 983. This seemed to large a gap to overcome for Eriksson, so he effectively threw in the towel and announced that Season 44 would be his last in the SHL. However, the start of Season 44 saw a huge turn in fortunes for the two as over the first dozen or so games, as Eriksson went a point per game while Anrikkanen only managed a single point. Suddenly, the race was back on and it was going down to the wire. In the end, it was Eriksson who triumphed, becoming the first player in SHL history to reach 1000 career points, but Esa was right behind and reached the milestone on the very next day.