... drafted by the Minnesota Wild
in the first round (8th overall) of the 2002 NHL draft (ahead of Cam Ward
, Alexander Semin
, Keith Ballard
and Duncan Keith
, among others) after winning Top Prospect honours in both the QMJHL and CHL, Bouchard was expected to be the same type of player Mike Ribeiro turned out to be: an adept playmaker with great deking hands who can lead his team in scoring once in a while.Combined with Mikko Koivu
, he was supposed to be the beginning of the Wild's change from a defense-oriented team to more of an offensive threat.Unfortunately, it took him until the 2006-07 season to reach the 20-goal barrier, and until 2007-08 to gather more than 60 points (63, off 13 goals and 50 assists). And just when it looked like he was getting there, he had a sub-par season in 2008-09 (16 goals, 30 assists, 46 points in 71 games) before suffering a concussion in the very first game of the 2009-10 season - from which he has yet to recover. He only started skating again - lightly - this week.
Very few players come back from a year-long injury to reach elite levels; it's even rarer when it comes to concussion victims. But he claims he's 90% recovered, we'll just have to wait and see.
This beautiful card (#U-PB) is from Fleer's 2006-07 Fleer Ultra
set, the Ultra Uniformity sub-set. It sports a gorgeous dark green patch, probably from the jersey's waist line. I used to not like the Wild's jersey colours, I found them ''un-hockey-like'', but I've gotten used to them and find them ok now.
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