Friday, October 7, 2016

Alexandre Burrows Jersey Card

In keeping with my "October/Halloween is scary" theme that has thus far included enforcers, borderline dirty Hall Of Famers, power forwards and members of the Philadelphia Flyers, I thought I could include pest extraordinaire Alexandre Burrows of the Vancouver Canucks.

After a string of six consecutive seasons with Selke Trophy votes - four of them of the 25+ goals variety, with a high of 35 in 2009-10 - Burrows' numbers have dipped below what he had accustomed onlookers to, perhaps even below what might have been expected at his salary.

Part of that falls on his shoulders for concentrating on playing his opponents' heads instead of playing the puck, but part of it also lies with the Canucks' coaching staff for not using him in favourable situations. And Canucks management, for putting an awful aging team - and young players who are clearly not yet ready for prime time - on the ice.

His 33 points in 70 games in 2014-15 were still good enough for sixth on the team, and his 2 points in 3 playoff games were the highest per-game average on the team, tied with the Sedin twins.

The 35-year-old will be a free agent after this coming season; I'd probably keep him around as a third-liner on a smaller cap hit than his current $4.5M, say 2.5 for two years, so he can retire with the only team's he's ever known.

Here he is on card #GJ-AB from Upper Deck's 2011-12 Series 1 set (and UD Game Jersey sub-set):
It shows him wearing the Canucks' white (away) uniform, with a matching game-worn jersey swatch.

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