Ben Maxwell Autographed Card

Since leaving North America in 2013-14, Ben Maxwell has split his time between the Finnish League's Oulun Kärpät and the KHL's Khanty-Mansyisk Ugra and HC Sochi.

While he helped Oulun to consecutive Finnish championships in 2013-14 and 2014-15, his regular-season production dipped, so he tried his hand at the KHL for more of the same; he posted 32 points in 52 games with Sochi this year and was blanked in three playoff games.

And though he may never become the offensive threat he once was projected to be as a second-round pick (49th overall in 2006), he plays a physical game and still has enough flair to make a decent third-line center, theoretically.

He's still just 27 years old and hasn't had all the opportunities that a guy like Lars Eller had; I think Maxwell could do well in the Swedish or Swiss leagues as well.

He was the first player to wear #80 for the Montréal Canadiens, which means he fits right in on my Habs Numbers Project with card #346 from Upper Deck's 2008-09 Power Play set:

He signed it in blue sharpie in 2012-13, while he was suiting up with the St. John's IceCaps while in the Winnipeg Jets organization.

Ben Maxwell Jersey Card

Score another one for my Habs Numbers Project!

Wearing #80, standing at six feet tall and weighing 177 pounds, born in North Vancouver, BC, the Montréal Canadiens' first of two second-round picks in 2009 (49th overall, the other one was Mathieu Carle picked 53rd), from Upper Deck's 2008-09 Be A Player set (card #RJ-BM of the Rookie Jerseys sub-set)... Ben Maxwell:

It sports a huge white swatch, but it's a beautiful design, the Be A Player logo complements the rest of the colour palette wonderfully, Maxwell looks good in the bleu-blanc-rouge with the Centennial patches, and it's numbered 117/299. Couldn't ask for more.

Maxwell played parts of 5 seasons in Juniors with the Kootenay Ice, only once surpassing the point-per-game mark, ironically, not in his final season as an over-aged veteran but the year following his draft, scoring 19 goals and totaling 53 points in just 39 games.

He only spent two and a half years in the Canadiens' organizations, playing 20 regular-season games and once in the playoffs, with 8 penalty minutes and a minus-3 rating to show for it, spending the bulk of his time with the Hamilton Bulldogs, with fairly decent stats there: 49 goals, 93 assists and 142 points in 177 games, but the Habs had to send him to the Atlanta Thrashers to acquire Brent Sopel and Nigel Dawes.

After playing most of 2011-12 and 2012-13 with the AHL's St. John's IceCaps, he decided the only way he wasn't going to be labelled a career AHLer is by going to Europe and dominating, which he has pretty much done in Finland this year, with 42 points in 49 games at last count for the Oulun Kärpät (literally, Oulun Ermines).

I purchased this card on Ebay two weeks ago - at a buck, I couldn't resist getting a hold of #80, especially since he might be hard to get TTM if he remains in Europe.

Oh, and here's an odd, only-by-Upper Deck bit of misinformation:

Yeah, congratulations on the game-used memorabilia, which was used in a photo shoot, not a game. And here's my real signature, though it's a fac-simile. What else do they feel like being ambiguous about, was he not a rookie?