Jonathan Audy-Marchessault Autograph Card

Well, hats off to the Tampa Bay Lightning for ousting the Montréal Canadiens tonight. It was a hard-fought series, and while my usual self would be inclined to say Tampa won 4-2 because Ben Bishop outplayed Carey Price, it's also true that the Habs have only one true goal scorer (Max Pacioretty) and just didn't have the firepower to match when goaltending is close to being even.

What I was happy about was that for the decisive game, head coach Jon Cooper opted to dress Jonathan Audy-Marchessault to replace Ryan Callahan (out after having had his appendix removed last night), keeping a right-handed physical player in the line-up, which dressing Jonathan Drouin may not have achieved (he's a play-making lefty who has yet to consistently make plays).

Also, Audy-Marchessault was a point-per-game player in the AHL and has been for his 4 seasons now (or in the vicinity, at least). And he had two points in two games with the Lightning earlier this season.

I've been sitting on this card of his for over a year now, and I was waiting for the right time to feature/criticize it:

Nice-looking card, right? The Columbus Blue Jackets' awesome alternate jersey, lots of silver foil (looks better scanned, but decent in person), with a short but well-placed on-card blue-sharpied signature, from Panini's 2013-14 Dominion set (#108 in the collection, part of the Dual Rookie Class, numbered 212/299).

I criticized the set (and its swatch cards) in this Erik Karlsson post last October, so I won't repeat my main gripes with it here (price was definitely an issue), and while I'll admit the autograph cards' silver foil makes the logos and letter easier to decipher, I HATED the difference in thickness between the auto cards and the swatches:

That's right - in an effort to thwart customers who ''feel'' packs up before they buy in an attempt to try to get the best ''hits'', they made the autograph cards double the thickness of the already-pretty-damn-thick jersey cards - meaning I can't store them in binders with my regular cards and, therefore, pretty much want to get rid of them instead of having them garner dust on some shelf or end up in a box in my closet.

You had one job, Panini, and you were too thick to cut it.