Saturday, October 1, 2016

Jean-Marc Pelletier: Two Autographed Cards

October's the month that ends in Halloween, so I thought perhaps I could feature a lot of players from tough, scary teams such as the Boston Bruins, Philadelphia Flyers and maybe some current-era dirty St. Louis Blues players as well.

I'd like to start with Jean-Marc Pelletier, although he only played a single game for the Flyers, who drafted him 30th overall in 1997, out of Cornell University, a pick that originally belonged to the Toronto Maple Leafs.
He was in nets for a 5-0 loss to the Ottawa Senators in the 1999-2000 season, and although he had decent numbers with the Philadephia Phantoms in the AHL, he was included in a trade with the Carolina Hurricanes, the one that sent Rod Brind'Amour down south and brought Keith Primeau to, essentially, replace Eric Lindros as the Broad Street Bullies' #1 Brute center.

He never played for the Canes and was relatively average for their IHL affiliate Cincinnati Cyclones, and so he was traded to the Phoenix Coyotes organization on December 31st, 2002 (Happy New Year!), and played two games for them that season, and four more the next, with a combined 1-3 record, 3.67 goals-against average and .864 save percentage - those stats would have been alright in the 1980s, but they were pretty dismal in the Dead Puck Era, which didn't stop the Florida Panthers from signing him as a free agent prior to the 2005-06 season.

He left the organization shortly after the 2006-07 season began to finish the season with the German League's Mannheim Eagles, before spending his final three professional seasons with another DEL team, the Hamburg Freezers.

Upon retiring, he went back to Cornell to finish his degree in Applied Economics and Management; he currently works for Lego in Denmark, and helped orchestrate the company's takeover of Mega Bloks, their main competitor.

He did sign the cards up top for me (in blue sharpie) when he was with the Rochester Americans (AHL, 2005-07), from his days in Philadelphia:
It's card #147 from Upper Deck's 1999-200 MVP set. He tagged his Americans jersey number (35) at the end.

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