Al MacAdam Autographed Card

Don't make your mind up about Al MacAdam solely on his career regular-season statistics of 240 goals, 351 assists and 591 points in 864 games, because those are skewed by playing four seasons with the lowly California Golden Seals/Cleveland Barons franchise and the mid-1980s Vancouver Canucks. He had a solid prime that compares with that of any non-Montréal Canadiens player from the late 70s and early 80s.

He started out playing for the Charlottetown Islanders of the MJAHL - a second-tier Junior League, right below the "Major Junior" leagues of the CHL - where he averaged two points per game and had them on runs to compete for the Centennial Cup, that level's equivalent of the CHL's Memorial Cup, losing in the semifinals in 1969-70 and reaching the Final in 1970-71.

The following season, he joined the University of Prince Edward Island Panthers, where he had 32 goals, 21 assists and 53 points in 36 games, but when the team failed to make it to the postseason, he re-joined the Islanders for yet another Centennial Cup run; despite his 15 goals, 21 assists and 36 points in just 11 games, the team lost in yet another semifinals.

However, in dominating in such fashion, he caught the attention of the Philadelphia Flyers, who drafted him 55th overall in 1972 and had him spend nearly two seasons with their AHL affiliate Richmond Robins; they called him up late in 1973-74 for five regular-season (no points) and one playoff game - the Stanley Cup clincher - before even playing his official rookie season. A proud hard worker who wanted to earn his credit, however, he refused to ever wear his championship ring, feeling he hadn't contributed enough to deserve it.

The Flyers sent him to the Seals during the off-season to acquire Reggie Leach, a move that helped earn them a second consecutive Cup, and one that ensured MacAdam would see regular playing time in the NHL, considering the California team's weak line-up. He made full use of his ice time, producing 18 goals, 25 assists and 43 points in his rookie season and a 32-goal, 31-assist, 63-point season the following year in what was the Seals' final season before being relocated to Cleveland, where he had another 63-point season in 1976-77.

Both 63-seasons had led him to the All-Star Game, and he was named the Barons' captain for the 1977-78 season, and although he finished fourth in team scoring that year, he did so on only 48 points as the struggling franchise was merged with the Minnesota North Stars as both teams were in danger of folding.

Despite appearing in only 69 games (amassing 58 points in the process) in the 1978-79 season, MacAdam forged a bond with linemates Bobby Smith - the eventual Calder Trophy winner - and Steve Payne, who scored a career-high 42 goals in just his second NHL season. The trio would be dominant for the following three seasons during which MacAdam would collect 93 (including a career-high 42 goals himself and a Bill Masterton Trophy), 60 and 61 points, with the first two seasons including deep playoff runs: a Conference Final in 1979-80 (16 points in 15 games) and a Cup Final in 1980-81 (19 points in 19 games).

The entire line also made its way to the 1979 World Championships on Team Canada, although Payne would be replaced by Marcel Dionne half the time. This was MacAdam's second World Championships, as he'd also suited up in the 1977 edition, the first time NHL professionals were allowed to participate in the tournament, following a six-year absence/boycott from the Canadian team.

MacAdam's time in the spotlight ended during the 1982-83 season when rookie Brian Bellows took his place on the North Stars' top line, relegating #25 - a strong two-way player and one of the smartest North American players of the 1970s with Bob Gainey and Jacques Lemaire - to a third-line checking role. The Selke Trophy votes became a yearly occurrence, but his points totals dipped to 33 in 73 games in '82-83 and 35 in 80 games the following season,leading to a trade to the Canucks in exchange for the legendary Harold Snepsts. It was Canucks GM Harry Neale's second attempt at having MacAdam play for him, as he'd invited him to join the OHA's Hamilton Red Wings in 1971-72 when the latter opted to go to university instead.

However, MacAdam never felt accepted by the Canuck fan base who didn't take well to Snepsts' departure, and he retired a year and a half later, 11 games into the Fredericton Express' (AHL) 1985-86 season, where he served a dual player-coach position.

He moved on to coaching full-time later that year, assuming a dual position as St. Thomas University's assistant athletic director and head hockey coach of the Tommies. In that capacity, he was named AUAA Coach of the Year in 1995-96. He accepted a position as head coach of the AHL's St. John's Maple Leafs from 1996-2000, then graduated to the NHL, becoming assistant-coach to Brian Sutter (with legends Denis Savard and Vladislav Tretiak) for the Chicago Blackhawks from 2000-04.

After a short stint with his alma mater University of Prince Edward Island Panthers, he coached the Halifax Mooseheads for a year and a half, leading the 2005-06 team to the second round of the LHJMQ playoffs before taking a break from the hockey life.

He briefly returned to getting paid to watch hockey games as a scout for the Buffalo Sabres from 2011-14, mostly watching Juniors games in the Maritimes and acting as the team's Director of Amateur Scouting for the 2012-13 season.

He sometimes leaves his comfortable life near the sea to participate in trade shows, which is where he signed this card of his for me between 2013 and 2015:

It's card #178 from In The Game's 2004-05 Franchises set (cards 151-300 are from the "U.S. West" sub-set/series), showing him wearing the Barons' red (away) uniform, with the captain's "C" visible. He signed it in thick black sharpie.

Paul Holmgren Three Autographed Cards

Paul Holmgren has had prominent roles with the Philadelphia Flyers for over 40 years at this point, so many always assume he's one of the all-time greats alongside Bobby Clarke, Bernard Parent, Ron Hextall and Eric Lindros.

That is absolutely not the case.

In 500 games with the Flyers, Holmgren's 309 points don't stand out as much as his 1600 penalty minutes, and he wasn't part of one of the two championship teams, having come in to play a single game in 1975-76, a full year after Philly's last Stanley Cup.

He only surpassed the 20-goal mark twice, scoring 22 in 1980-81 and 30 in 1979-80, and even that was only good for fith on the team, behind Reggie Leach (50), Bill Barber (40), Brian Propp (34) and Rick MacLeish (31). That was a weird season in Philadelphia, as captain Clarke not only posted 69 points (good for fifth on the team behind Ken Linseman, Leach, Propp and Barber) but was also in his first of three seasons as assistant-coach on the team. He played two years past his three-year stint as assistant-coach... not that's a legend.

In case you were wondering where I was going with this, Holmgren resigned as the team's President earlier today and joined the ranks of "advisor" alongside Clarke, his predecessor both as GM and President.

Unlike Clarke, however, "Homer" made a lot of questionable moves that greatly backfired, such as trading young (and heavy-partying) core players Mike Richards and Jeff Carter to make room under the salary cap to sign the second-best available free agent goalie on the market, Ilya Bryzgalov, to a nine-year, $51M contract, a deal that was bought out in the summer of 2013 after two seasons and that will be on the Flyers' cap until 2027. (For the record, I don't think Richards and Carter get the wake-up call that turns them into two-time Cup champions if they don't get traded, so at least there's that).

Oh, and to make room for him on the roster, he traded Sergei Bobrovsky to the Columbus Blue Jackets for a second-round pick and two fourth-rounders; Bob, of course, would go on to win two Vezina trophies as the league's best goalie in Columbus and is the only active goalie who can make such a claim. (And yes, Henrik Lundqvist is till playing and just has one to his name).

By the way, the best free agent goalie on the market the year Bryz was signed? That was perennial All-Star Tomas Vokoun, who signed a one-year deal worth $1.5M.

Holmgren is also the one who traded playoff best and projected 30-goal forward James van Riemsdyk (he would hit the mark twice and come close another two in the following six seasons) to the Toronto Maple Leafs for defensive defenseman on a down slide Luke Schenn.

Was he also able to trade away valuable draft picks, you ask? How about the first-rounder who became John Carlson for defenseman Steve Eminger (man, does he ever love those stay-at-home defensemen!), who played a total of 12 games in Philadelphia (0 goals, 2 assists, 8 penalty minutes) before being shipped out?

Then there was the free agent signings of Nikolay Zherdev and the trade for Andrej Meszaros which put the team over the cap, forcing them to trade away a contract - namely that of fan-favourite and playoff hero Simon Gagné, a two-time 40-*goal scorer and one opf the most prolific scorers of the Dead Puck Era - for (you guessed it!) defensive defenseman Matt Walker, who played the final 8 games of his 314-game career with the Flyers. Gagné reached the Cup Final the following season with the Tampa Bay Lightning and won the Cup with Richards and Carter on a mighty Flyer-heavy 2012 Los Angeles Kings squad.

A trade of pests? Sure! Effective checking winger and semi-power forward Scottie Upshall for dirtbag and suspension magnet Dan "Carbomb" Carcillo comes to mind...

And yet he kept failing upwards. Until as team Preseident, he hired Hextall as GM, who did an admirable job stocking up the cupboards with blue chip prospects and getting rid of Holmgren's terrible contracts. Hextall was assitant-HGM on the Cup-winning Kings of 2012 and 2014, so he was more than familiar with the Flyers' roster; it was a marriage that lasted for four seasons, until last Christmas, when Holgmren decided Hextall wasn't bold enough and took his place to finish up the season, until he found his replacement in the form of Chuck Fletcher, the man who saddled the Minnesota Wild with so many bad contracts that they were never good enough to make a dent in the post-season despite carrying not one but two (Ryan Suter and Zach Parise) players on identical 13-year, $98M contracts.

Of course, the first few things Fletcher did was get rid of a third of the defense and, most importantly, sign Kevin Hayes - a middle-six center who had only reached the 50-point plateau once, and that was last year - to an albatross seven-year, $50M contract that includes a no-movement clause that guarantees he will have to take up a protection spot for next season's expansion draft.

Bold. Extremely stupid and ill-advised, but bold.

So, yeah. Holmgren.

This is what he looked like when patrolling the ice in a Flyers uniform, collecting penalty minutes the way some folks do frequent flyer miles:

The card on the left is #105 in Topps' 1981-82 Topps set, while the one on the right is #434 from In The Game's 2004-05 Franchises: U.S. East collection. Both feature him in the classic 1970s orange (away) uniform.

A Minnesota native, Holmgren started out his professional career playing for the WHA's Minnesota Fighting Saints for most of the 1975-76 season, and he returned to his home state at the tail end of his career, suiting up with the Minnesota North Stars for 27 games spread over two seasons, as seen on card #100 from O-Pee-Chee's 1984-85 O-Pee-Chee set:

He's wearing the team's amazing 1980s green (away) uniform. I miss those so much.

All three were signed in black sharpie in February 2018 when the Flyers were in Montréal.